Friday, January 08, 2010

Jan 7th - Seared Roasted Sablefish with Tapenade and Lighter Polenta (half a rerun)

We used some of the leftover components of a previous dinner to do the dish again but swapping out some of the key ingredients. We've done this a few times as a result of an oddity on professional chefs and their estimation for side sauces.

We had alot of left over tapenade from the dinner on New Years Eve. If you have tried this recipe from my Dec 31st post you might have realised that the 2c makes way too much tapenade for one evening. Maybe Tyler Florence likes his food salty. Doubt it. I've seen this quite alot with sauces like Tapenades, Lemon Caper dipping sauce, Bernaise ... where the recipe actually is 3 times what is necessary for the dish at hand. The tapenade recipe I posted on New Years Eve called for 2 cups of Kalamata Olives. That sounded like alot to begin with. I should have realised while I was pitting them all that it was way too much for one evening. Oh well, it was yummy and worth having again!

http://365vancouvereats.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-years-eve-dinner-2009.html

Seared and Roasted SableFish (Black Cod)
with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Kalamata Tapenade

Prepare the Cherry Tomatoes as described on the other link. We had left over of these too. It was a 2 for 1 pint situation.
We used the leftover Tapenade. Stir to better bind.

Sable fish is the Canadian branding for black cod caught in Canadian waters. It is a buttery, slightly oily fish. It's flesh is supple. It'll still seem a bit bouncy and you may be tempted to cook longer but don't. You're looking for a poke check of what a medium rare steak would feel like, i.e. the fat part of the base of your thumb. You're looking at about 150-200 g per person. 200 is alot.

Preheat oven to 400F. Clean and pat dry. Season lightly with pepper. You won't need salt because of the olives. Heat olive oil to cover the bottom in a oven proof skillet. Carefully place the fish into the pan skin side down. Do not be tempted to touch for at least 2 minutes. Don't jiggle, don't poke, don't peak underneath with a spatula. 2-3 minutes. It will stick. It will come loose once we let it cook a bit. Turn over and sear the top for 1 minute. Turn back over to skin side. Place the whole skillet into the oven for 10-12 minutes.

Serve with 1-2 T of the tapenade smeared on top and topped with the cherry tomatoes.

Lighter Polenta (serves 2)

1 c heavy cream
2/3 c broth (veggie or chicken)
1/4 t fresh nutmeg (or 5 swipes on the grater according to D. I put more because it doesn't look right)
1/4 t salt (depending on how salty your broth is)
ground pepper
1/3 c yellow corn meal (fine to medium)

Bring the cream and broth w nutmeg and salt to a boil in a small sauce pan. Sprinkle the cornmeal in while whisking rapidly the whole time until it's all in. 2 minutes. Switch to a wooden spoon and turn down the heat to very low. Stir regularly for 15 minutes. You'll likely need to add upto another 1/2 c of water or broth depending on how hot your stovetop stays after you turn the heat down. Unlike oatmeal or rice, the polenta will continue to absorb water with out mushing out. A good texture is cake batter or soft icecream.

The whole recipe will ask you to add 1/3 cup of fresh parmesan. I left it out and it was fine. It was still super yummy.

I would recommend eating right away. It will cool off and congeal. Which is fine and still really tasty, just not as cosmetically pretty on the plate.

Next time, I'll add the cheese back and replace the cream with milk to see if it still tastes okay.

On the side we had a small green salad with a simple balsamic dressing.

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