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.

A SUMMER MENU

What a pleasure to have dinner guests again! Although, I’ve totally abandoned my hostessing skills, I still enjoy putting together a meal for friends and sitting around the table to catch up—or get acquainted.

On a recent sticky July evening, I had one pescatarian and one vegetarian among my guests, so putting together a menu was a challenge. Ben suggested “a big fish” for the grill. I added several vegetable dishes, some inspired by my garden, and two sauces to go with everything. 

Here’s a summer menu that you can adapt to every taste.

Rebujitos (recipe here.)

Rebujitos—spritzer with fino Manzanilla. 

Salad cups with tomatoes, cucumber, melon, goat cheese and fresh basil.

Grilled corvina

Green chile-cilantro sauce (mojo verde)

        Caper-yogurt sauce

Grilled vegetables (escalivada)

Potatoes with lemon dressing (papas aliñás)

Watermelon ice cream

Salad Cups with Melon and Cheese

Ensaladilla con Melón y Queso Fresco

Summer tomatoes, crunchy cuke, sweet melon, soft cheese and fresh basil. 

I like queso fresco de cabra, a soft, fresh white goat cheese, with the raw vegetables and sweet melon. Feta would be good as well. The quantities can easily be increased to serve a crowd. With the addition of diced smoked ham the salad easily becomes a (non-vegetarian) lunch bowl. 

Serves 4-6.

1 ½ cups chopped tomatoes or halved cherry tomatoes

1 ½ cups diced melon

½ cup peeled and diced cucumber

¼ cup diced celery

2 tablespoons chopped scallion

1 cup diced queso fresco de cabra (fresh white goat cheese)

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar

Salt

Handful fresh basil leaves

Salad greens

Pine nuts, to garnish

Combine the tomatoes, melon, cucumber, celery, scallion and cheese in a bowl. Add the oil, vinegar and salt to taste. Mix well. Salad can be prepared in advance and refrigerated, covered, until ready to serve.

Tear the basil into pieces and stir into the salad immediately before serving. Put salad greens in salad cups or small bowls and spoon the salad into the cups. Garnish with pine nuts.

Grilled Corvina

Corvina a la Parilla

Fresh corvina for the grill.

I had two whole corvina, a fish somewhat like sea bass, each weighing almost 2 pounds before being gutted. I left them unscaled, with the heads on for easiest grilling. We used a gas grill. A hinged grill made turning the fish easy. 

We cut slashes in the fish so they would grill quicker. Grilling time depends on the size and thickness of the fish, heat source and placement of the grill. (Next time we will have the fish butterflied, opened up so they grill a la espalda, "on their back.”) These were done perfectly—the flesh was still moist, but easily lifted off the bone. Ben pulled off the skin and served the pieces of fish onto a serving platter.

Grilled corvina (fish) with grilled summer vegetables and two sauces. Green chile sauce (mojo verde) has green chile, cilantro, garlic and oil (recipe here). The other sauce is yogurt-mayonnaise-capers (recipe here ).

Grilled Summer Vegetables

Escalivada

Grill eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic. Peel the vegetables and dress with oil and vinegar.

The vegetables—eggplant, peppers, onions, tomatoes and a whole head of garlic—roast in the time it takes to char them. They can be grilled before putting the fish on the grill.  Once cool enough to handle, pull off the skins and tear or cut into strips. Mash the cloves of roasted garlic and mix into the vegetables.  Dress with extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. (See the recipe for escalivada here .)

Potates with Lemon Dressing

Patatas Aliñadas

This side can be be prepared in advance and served room temperature or chilled. In tapa bars, it's often served with chopped tomatoes, olives and chunks of (canned) tuna.

Use mature, mealy potatoes that will soak up the dressing, but take care not to overcook them. Chilling the potatoes before peeling and slicing helps to keep them intact. Be sure to use lots of extra virgin olive oil and enough lemon juice to give the potatoes tang. 

1 ½ pounds mature baking potatoes 

Salt

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Red pepper flakes (optional)

Hard cooked egg, sliced, to garnish

Cook the whole potatoes in boiling salted water until they are just tender when pierced with a skewer, 20 to 30 minutes, depending on size. Drain and cool.

Peel the potatoes. Cut them lengthwise into quarters, then slice the potatoes crosswise. Put a layer of potatoes in a bowl. Sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of salt and some of the oil. Add the remaining sliced potatoes. Sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of salt and most of the remaining oil. Add the lemon juice, parsley and red pepper flakes, if using. Stir very gently. 

To serve, spread the potatoes in a shallow bowl. Garnish with sliced egg. Drizzle the remaining oil on top of the potatoes.

Watermelon ice, a cool finale.

Watermelon Ice is a cool finish to a summer meal. It is not ice cream, nor is it sorbet. Pureed watermelon combined with Greek yogurt give a smooth ice. No ice cream machine is needed, but you do need to blend or process the partially frozen ice. (The recipe for Watermelon Ice is here )

Fresh basil, handfuls of it for the salad cups.

Jalapeños! Inspiration for the mojo verde, green chile sauce, to go with the grilled fish.

OFF TO SEE THE RUINS

Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia.

While my friend Donna from New York was visiting last week, we made an excursion to see the Roman ruins of Baelo Claudia. Situated right on the wind-swept beach of Bolonia, near Tarifa in the Straits of Gibraltar—the southernmost tip of Europe—the ruins are of a fairly substantial town that thrived from the 2nd century BC until 2nd century AD.

Vats where garum was produced.

Temples, market, forum, amphitheater make up excavated ruins. And, beside the sea, are pits where garum, the salsa of the ancients, was produced. Garum, made of tuna guts fermented, brined and seasoned, was the earliest manufactured food produced in Spain and shipped back to Rome.

If in Roman times this was a thriving commercial port, nowadays it is a quiet beach where cattle mosey almost to the water’s edge and kite surfers crisscross the sky. North Africa looms in the haze over the sea (this is the Atlantic).

Beach and dunes at Bolonia.

I love landscapes, seascapes and Roman ruins, but what I really like about excursions is lunch. Just beyond the archeological enclosure are several chringuitos, beach-shack restaurants. Ensconced on a terrace out of the wind, we ordered a lunch of fresh seafood.

Coquinas, small wedge-shelled clams, cooked with garlic and wine, para picar, to share while our fish cooked, then a whole grilled fish for each of us.

Coquinas are tiny wedge-shell clams.

We chose borriquete, identified in Alan Davidson’s book, The Tio Pepe Guide to the Seafood of Spain and Portugal (Santana Books, 2002) as “rubber-lip grunt,” a type of bream, because it looked marvelously fresh. The waiter told us it is fished right off this coast, whereas the sea bass come from a piscifactoria, or fish farm.

The fish (priced by weight—and these were big ones!) were simply grilled on a plancha, a flat griddle. No sauce was served with it (some garum, perhaps?), but roasted red peppers and patatas fritas came alongside. We devoured every morsel. The flesh was sweet and moist, the skin crackly.

Borriquete--a type of bream--grilled to perfection.

Coquinas a la Marinera
Fishermen-Style Clams

In Andalusia, tiny clams such as the wedge-shells in the photo are prepared this way, with garlic, parsley and wine. But you can use slightly larger Manila clams too. This is usually served as a plate for sharing. Place the pan in the middle of the table and accompany with chunks of bread for sopping up the sauce.

Serves 3 to 4 as a shared starter.

2 pounds clams
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup water
piece of chili (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Wash the clams in running water. Discard any shells which are opened or cracked.

In a cazuela or deep skillet heat the oil and sauté the garlic 1 minute. Stir in the flour, then add the clams. On a high heat, add the wine, water and chili. Cover and shake the pan until the clam shells open. This takes 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove from heat when most of the shells have opened. Top with chopped parsley. Serve immediately with bread.

Roasted peppers served with grilled fish.