Asian Steamed Sea Bass - As Promised
Because I normally do not target sea bass I will take them as they come whilst fishing for other species. But, every once in a great while I do manage to hang one that is truly special. Such was the case this past Wednesday on Capt. Mike's boat - a
true 4lb beauty. It might have a shocked look on its face, but I assure you, it was as big a surprise to me as it was to him.
Mike had zero doubt that I would prepare this fish whole - based on other fish cooking adventures that I've spoken of. And my favorite recipe for whole sea bass comes from the
On the Water website, as can be found at this link:
Join On The Water's Andy Nabreski and wife and fellow chef Susan Nabreski as they cook and serve up a whole Black Sea Bass.
www.onthewater.com
Basically, you scale and gut it, wash out its cavity well, and remove the prickly fins and most of the tail.
Then a bunch of Asian-inspired goodies get put onto (and into) the fish. These include scallions, slivered ginger, garlic, a thin-sliced lime, rinsed fermented black beans (
very important), cilantro, and some sort of sliced hot-ish peppers - in this case we went with a big fat jalapeno - minus the seeds. Don't forget to put a series of angular slashes in the fish's sides, so to accept a generous amount of the various dressings. Also, pouring the soy sauce/honey/sherry over the fish prior to sealing it up under the tin foil will provide the proper flavor to the resulting broth.
Next, a double boiler-type homemade "steaming setup" needs to be put together to suspend the fish above the boiling water, with a covering of heavy-duty tin foil to seal it in. We re-purposed our Circulon turkey pan, with its roasting rack installed, with a smaller stainless steel baking pan to hold the fish. Eight to ten minutes per pound of actual steam time is perfect.
Up top on the stove's two right-side burners, for 35 minutes, and good to go. Its vital to follow the part of the recipe directions regarding the final pouring of smokin' hot dark sesame oil onto the fish, both to crisp up the skin, as well as add the final ingredient to the broth that accumulated in the pan.
After that its a simple task to separate the meat from the backbone, and serve it with sides as you wish. We chose blistered shishito peppers done in our air fryer, simple white rice, shrimp-filled gyoza, and Asian-inspired broccoli florets made by partially steaming the veggie in our handy-dandy microwave steamer, and then finishing it in a frying pan with peanut oil, garlic, and our "special find" Asian sauce called Bachan's Japanese Barbecue Sauce (available at Costco - and
HIGHLY recommended!)
Let's just say all that was left was the head and and spine.
