FISH DINNER FOR TWO

 After the houseful of visiting family and planning meals for a crowd, it’s been a quiet week cooking for two. I bought two lovely lubinas de ración, single-portion sea bass (each weighing about 1 ½ pounds) and had them opened up a la espalda—“on their backs”—or butterflied. I cooked them in no time on a gas grill and served them with an aliño of garlic, parsley, and olive oil.

Whole sea bass, one per person, are butterflied, grilled and served with a garlic-parsley sauce. 

A butterflied fish is quick to cook, whether on the grill or in the oven. At my local market, the fish vendor is accustomed to clean and cut-up the fish in any way you wish. I can shop at the vegetable stall while she does the messy work. 

If you’re doing it yourself, here’s how. Use a sharp boning knife or kitchen scissors and trim off the fins and the tail. If the fish is going to cook on the grill, don’t scale it. Scales protect the flesh from flare-ups and prevent the skin from sticking to the grill rack. (But if the fish is to be grilled on a plancha or roasted in the oven, scale the fish.  Place the fish on a sheet of newspaper. Scrape the scales off with a dull blade from the tail to the head. Roll up and discard the paper with the scales.) Use a heavy knife or cleaver to split open the head of the fish without severing the two halves. Place the fish on its side. With the sharp boning knife kept flat against the spine, cut the top fillet away from the bone, working from head to tail. Leave the fillet attached along the back. Open the fish “like a book.” Clean out the viscera but leave the spine in place until after the fish is cooked. 

Grilled Sea Bass

Lubina a la Parilla

2 whole sea bass  (each about 1 ½ pounds), butterflied 

Salt

Pepper

Lemon wedge

Garlic-Parsley Sauce to serve (recipe follows)

Smashed Potatoes to accompany (recipe below)

Hinged grill rack makes flipping fish easy.

Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper and let it come to room temperature. Preheat gas grill or light charcoal. Wipe the grill rack with the lemon wedge. A hinged grill is useful for turning the fish. Lay the  fish open “on its back,” skin-side down, over the flame or coals. Grill about 5 minutes. Flip the fish (easy with a hinged grill) and grill the reverse side briefly. The fish is done when you can easily lift the spine from the flesh. 

Discard spine. Serve the fish, one per person. If grilling a larger fish, serving two, after discarding the spine, lift the fillets away from the skin and serve one fillet per person. Spoon the garlic-parsley sauce over the fish.

Simple sauce of fried garlic and parsley complements the fresh fish.

Garlic-Parsley Sauce for Fish

Aliño para Pescado

1/3 cup olive oil

4 cloves garlic, sliced

Red pepper flakes

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 tablespoons vinegar

Salt

Sauce for fish and potatoes.

Heat the oil in a small skillet and gently fry the sliced garlic until it begins to turn golden. Add the red pepper flakes. Remove the pan from the heat and add the parsley, vinegar and a pinch of salt. Stir the sauce before spooning it over grilled fish or vegetables. 

Smashed Potatoes

Patatas Aplastadas

In Spain, these small potatoes are marketed as patatas de guarnación, or “potatoes for garnishing.” 

Small potatoes

Olive oil

Coarse salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Garlic-Parsley Sauce (aliño)

Cook the unpeeled potatoes in salted boiling water until they are tender, about 10 minutes. Drain well. Place them on a work surface and with the palm of the hand or the bottom of a tea cup, press them gently to split the skins and flatten them slightly. (They can be cooked and smashed in advance.)

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet and brown the potatoes on one side. Place them on a plate, browned side up, and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Spoon some of the garlic-parsley sauce on them to serve.

More ways to grill fish:

Plancha-Grilled Fish with Caper Sauce.

Grilled Trout Wrapped in Grape Leaves.

Grilled Corvina with Escalivada.

Grilled Albacore Tuna with Ponzu Sauce.

Plancha-Grilled Squid with Red Chile Sauce (Mojo Picón)

Grilled Sardines with Cornbread.

Grilled Swordfish Brochettes.

THE GREAT CULINARY CAPER

Capers and caperberries.

What an apt name!  The caper, with its sprightly piquancy, adds playful punch to many savory dishes.  It's name comes from the scientific nomenclature, capparis spinosa, a thorny bush that grows wild in Mediterranean regions (alcaparra in Spanish). I found it, improbably, sprouting from a white-washed wall in the village, below which political posters for an upcoming election were plastered.

It is the flower bud of the caper bush, pickled or preserved in brine, that provides the culinary condiment we buy bottled on the grocer's shelf. If allowed to bloom, the flowers produce a seed pod, culinarily known as “caperberries” (alcaparrones). These, too, are brined and used as a condiment. The berry has a bit of crunch, but can be used interchangeably with capers.

Spain continues as the world's market leader in capers, although nowadays they are sourced from growers in Morocco and Turkey.

Caperberries have a slight crunch.

How to use capers? Throw them into just about any dish that needs some pizzazz. Their salty tang really perks up any food, but seems to have a special affinity for fish. Put capers on pizza, toss them with pasta. Use them in any way you might use olives, for instance, in cauliflower salad, stuffed eggs, potato salad.

Add capers to classic sauces such as tapenade, vinaigrette, remoulade, ravigote, tartare. Serve them with smoked salmon or, stirred with sour cream, as a topping for baked potatoes.

Tuna salad with capers and caperberries.

Combine capers with tuna canned in olive oil, chopped celery, green onions and lemon juice for the best-ever tuna salad (no mayonnaise!).

Grilled Fish With Caper Dressing
Pescado a la Plancha con Aliño de Alcaparras

Caper sauce adds pizzazz to grilled fish.

This fish is cooked a la espalda –“on its back”. Originally a style of grilling a la brasa, over hot coals, this is easy to do under a broiler or on a plancha, a flat  iron grill pan. My favorite plancha is reversible--a ridged grill for meat on one side and a flat one for fish and shellfish on the other. 

Butterflied fish is grilled on a plancha.

Any sea bream or sea bass could be prepared this way. I used dorada, golden bream, a product of aquaculture (see blog about farmed fish here). Each whole fish weighs between one and 1 ¼ pounds. Depending on appetites, this would serve one or two persons. (I easily eat a whole one.)

Have the fish gutted, scaled and split open along the belly and butterflied. Remove the spine. The head is usually left on, split open so that it lays flat. Open the fish out flat, salt it lightly and let it rest 30 minutes at room temperature.

Grilled fish has crispy skin.

After grilling, you can serve the whole fish with sauce spooned over and allow each person to lift off the bones, fins and head (and fish out the delicious dollop of flesh in the cheeks). Or, remove all the bones in the kitchen and serve the fillets on heated dinner plates with the caper sauce.

If cooking the fish under the broiler instead of on a grill pan, preheat the broiler pan and do not turn the fish.

Serves 2-4.

2 whole sea bream, weighing about 1 ¼  pounds each.
Coarse salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Caper sauce (recipe follows)
   
Brush a flat grill pan with oil, sprinkle with salt and heat it.

Pat the fish dry with paper towels. Brush both skin and flesh sides with oil. Lay the fish, skin-side down, on the hot grill pan. Grill 5 minutes. Carefully turn the fish and grill flesh-side down 2 minutes longer.

Transfer the grilled fish to a heated platter and serve it, on its back, with the caper sauce spooned over it, or fillet it and serve on heated dinner plates.

For the caper dressing:

This makes enough sauce for two 1-pound fish. Serve the sauce also with grilled chicken breast, veal or tuna steaks.

Ingredients for caper sauce.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced
Red pepper flakes or sliced chili
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons drained capers
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Sauté the garlic and red pepper flakes until garlic begins to turn golden. Add the salt and lemon juice. Remove from heat and stir in the capers and parsley. 

Pop a caperberry in your next martini.

I just bought a caper bush at the nursery gardens. Will find a sunny spot in the garden. See the little buds on the stem? About ready to pick and pickle.