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.

GRILL WEEK

 How did we get through two weeks of family meals without ever grilling? And, with two experienced barbecuers around, at that. I suppose it’s because we rarely sat down all together, making it hardly worth while to fire up the grill.

This week, in an attempt to keep a cool kitchen, I am grilling every single day. With the addition of salad-y foods and pots of rice and pasta, I’ve got lunches and dinners for days.

Ben gave me a grilling tutorial on day one to get me started. (We are using a gas barbecue.) His advice is pretty basic: Scrape the grill rack. Turn the gas on High to burn off residue. Scrub the grates with a half-lemon speared on a long-handled fork or tongs. Don’t use any oil on the grates nor on the foods to be grilled. Heat the grill very hot before placing food on it, then lower the heat as needed. Don’t use marinades, rubs or sauces that contain sugar, which can cause the food to burn. Add barbecue sauce at the very end of cooking time. 

Sea bass (lubina) on the grill with a bunch of vegetables.

So simple! A whole sea bass (about 1 3/4 pounds) on the grill. The fish vendor suggested not removing scales. I sprinkled it with salt, nothing else. No oil. Surprisingly, the fish did not stick to the grill at all. 

Remove the fish from the refrigerator 20 minutes before grilling. Salt it inside and outside. Heat grill to maximum. Place fish on the grill, reduce heat and lower the cover. Grill 5 minutes. Turn the fish and grill 2 minutes longer or until fish, when prodded with a skewer, seems to separate easily from the spine. 

In the kitchen, I removed the head, pulled off the skin and lifted the fillets off the bone. I served the fish with a hot-spicy Green Chile Sauce, Mojo Verde (the recipe for mojo verde is here.)

Vegetables for grilling.

Any time the grill is on, you can be sure I'll add some vegetables on the side of the main item. Mushrooms, asparagus, zucchini, peppers, onions, garlic, eggplant, tomatoes are all good. The vegetables pictured grilled alongside the fish, but I didn't prepare them, removing skins and cutting them up, until the next day. 

Albacore tuna (bonito del norte) on the grill.

Albacore tuna (bonito del norte) is a summertime favorite and amazingly economical. I bought two thick steaks, about 15 ounces each. Dipped them in coarse salt and sesame seeds, seared them on a preheated very hot grill, 2 minutes per side. I wanted them rare in the center, but made the mistake of turning them a second time. Experience is everything with grilling!

The albacore tuna was delicious sliced and served with Japanese-style ponzu sauce (the ponzu sauce recipe is  here.), rice, bok choy and coleslaw with black sesame. Leftover grilled bonito made a good lunch in a salade Niçoise. 

Pasta with grilled vegetables.

And those gorgeous grill-roasted vegetables?  After peeling the eggplants, peppers, onion and tomatoes, I pulled them into strips for escalivada, a Catalan dish. (That recipe is here.) I  sautéed the vegetables and the mashed roasted garlic in olive oil with 1 cup grated tomato pulp and white wine to make a pasta sauce. Here it is served on noodles and topped with requesón, the Spanish version of ricotta, pine nuts and chopped basil for a summery vegetarian dish. 

Racks of ribs on the grill, before adding Fig BBQ Sauce. Those tomatoes, once they char and soften, will be stashed for a future pasta sauce.

No grill week is complete without ribs! I had two small racks of ribs, each weighing about 1 ½ pounds. I marinated them in a semi-adobo, with salt, pepper, oregano and vinegar (no pimentón, which burns easily; no oil, which causes flare-ups). Placed on a preheated hot grill, they cooked 12 minutes before turning. Another 12 minutes. Then I brushed them on one side with Fig BBQ Sauce and let that brown nicely (careful!) before brushing the reverse side with more sauce and turning to glaze. The recipe for Fig BBQ Sauce is below.

Grilled ribs are finished with a fig BBQ sauce, served with skewered grilled figs and grilled potatoes. 

I served grilled potatoes with the ribs. They were par-boiled, then cut in halves, brushed with a little oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper and sprigs of rosemary and placed on the grill just until lightly browned. I had leftover grilled potatoes, so, the next day, I turned them into Green Potato Salad!

For the Green Potato Salad: Cut cooked potatoes into dice. Add chopped celery, onion and red bell pepper. Add spoonsful of Green Chile Sauce (mojo verde, the sauce that accompanied the grilled sea bass) and mix gently. Add more salt and vinegar, to taste. 

Small, spatchcocked chickens splayed out on the grill. Grill week came to an abrupt end when the butane gas bottle ran out! Luckily, it was in the last few minutes of cooking time. The smaller chicken was done to perfection. The larger one I'll use, cut up, incorporated in different dishes that will cook a little longer. I served the grilled chicken with chunky Fig BBQ Sauce on the side, not brushed on the birds as for the pork ribs. Same sauce, different ways to use it.

I like these small, whole chickens (each weighing about 2 pounds) because they roast so quickly and stay juicy. For the grill, I spatchcocked them first (removed the back bone), then dry-brined them. I served them with chunky fig sauce. 

Remove back bone from chicken.

To spatchcock a chicken: Place the chicken on cutting board, breast-side down. With a sharp knife, cleaver or kitchen scissors, cut out the center backbone, from neck to tail. (Save it for the stock-pot.) Turn breast-side up and press down on the breast bone to slightly flatten the chicken. Salt the chicken generously, inside and out. Leave it, uncovered, in the refrigerator at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours. 

Preheat grill to very hot. Lay chickens, cut-side down, on the grill. Close the cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. (Or turn off one of the three burners.) Roast the chickens 15 minutes. Check to make sure the chickens are not burning. Move them to different positions on the grill, but don’t flip them yet. Grill 15 minutes and move them again. After a total of 45 minutes, turn the chickens skin-side down and roast 15 minutes more to brown the skins. (Larger chickens will take longer. Cook to an internal temperature of 160ºF in the thickest part of the thigh.)

Chicken with Chunky Fig Sauce

Serve the chicken hot, warm or cold accompanied by the Fig BBQ Sauce (recipe below). 

Fig BBQ Sauce

Salsa de Higos para Barbacoa

Super-sweet ripe figs give this barbecue sauce substance without the addition of sugar. A sweet wine, such as Pedro Ximenez, adds to the fruity, caramel flavors. Balance them with vinegar and lemon juice. The figs do not need to be peeled. The sauce can be used chunky or pureed to make a sauce that can be brushed on a rack of ribs. For grilling, add the sauce at the end of cooking time so the sauce doesn’t burn. 

Chunky fig BBQ sauce.

Makes 3 cups of sauce.

1 ½ pounds ripe figs (4 cups chopped)

¼ cup soy sauce

¼ cup sweet wine 

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon grated ginger

¼ cup white wine vinegar

1 strip lemon zest, minced

¼ cup water

1 dried chile (optional)

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Chop figs without peeling.

Wash the figs, remove stems and chop the figs. Combine them in a saucepan with the soy, wine, garlic, ginger, vinegar, zest, water, chile, if using, and salt. Place over high heat until the mixture begins to bubble. Lower heat and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, until thickened, about 15 minutes. Add the lemon juice. Cool the sauce.

If desired, puree all or part of the sauce. If using as a sauce for foods on the grill, add it at the end of the cooking time and watch carefully so that the sauce doesn’t char. 

Skewer ripe figs on rosemary twigs and grill. Wow!

More grill recipes:

Grilled Sardines and Cornbread.

Swordfish Brochettes.

Sauce for Grilled Vegetables.

Barbecue Sauce for Ribs.

Grilled Ibérico Pork.

Grilled Leg of Lamb with Onion Marinade.

ON THE BEACH, Part 2

Last summer we had a grand family reunion on the Gulf Coast, USA. This year we convened close to my home, on the Mediterranean, at a beachside restaurant called a chiringuito. 

A typical chiringuito on the Costa del Sol, a few steps from the Mediterranean Sea.

Here's our gang. We've reserved a table, although on this weekday, the beach was not too crowded.

An old fishermen's custom on the Málaga coast--grilling fish on espetos, or skewers, stuck in the sand. Here a beached fishing boat is filled with sand to contain the fire. 

Our lunch! Fresh, locally-caught sardines and a whole lubina, sea bass. 

We start with plates of fried boquerones (fresh anchovies) and calamares (squid), tiny wedge-shelled clams (coquinas) and, of course, salad. Grown-ups are drinking tinto de verano, red wine with lemon soda and lots of ice. I noticed at a nearby table, three ladies of a certain age, ordering the second bottle of chilled vino rosado, rosé.

A squeeze of lemon on the calamares? Of course! My grandsons, from left, Lucas, 14; Nico, 10, and Leo, 15. 

Fresh anchovies, locally caught, crisply fried.

These coquinas (wedge-shelled clams) were superlative!

Mixed salad. The chiringito's thatched roof makes for curious lighting effects. But, the shade is sure welcome.

We ordered a small paella as a side dish and shared it all around. Good idea. 

Grilled sardines! This is what I came for! 

And, the whole sea bass, roasted to perfection.

On the Beach, Part 1, the Gulf Coast.
Another chiringuito lunch on the Mediterranean.
Lunch and Roman ruins on an Atlantic beach.


Recipes for some of the pictured food:
Fishermen-Style Wedge-Shell Clams.
Fried Squid (Calamares) and Fresh Anchovies (Boquerones).
Grilled Sardines.
Mixed Salad.