The recipe. The Book doesn’t call for garlic chive sprouts though.
Finally fish! That one lonely fish dish has been an embarrassment for too long. I hated looking at the stats page and seeing the Fish and Shellfish section averaging just one mushroom. This was a much better dish, and I’m delighted to add it.
The recipe calls for striped bass, but salmon was one of the alternatives, and it was looking much nicer that day. The recipe is very simple and elegant. The fish is started in a skillet on the stove- top skin side down, then transferred to the oven to finish up. The recipe calls for moving the fish from the pan to a baking dish, but I just moved my cast iron skillet into the oven. Once the fish is nicely roasted it’s topped with a puree of sour cream, water, lemon juice, and chives. A sprinkling of minced chives, and a splash of lemon juice finish the dish.
The fish was prepared very simply, which let it show off it’s natural flavour. The sauce was a great compliment to the fish that managed to counterpoint the fish’s flavours without overpowering. I really like the sea foam green shade the sauce turned out. It was creamy smooth with onion accents and clear punch of lemon. I thought it worked particularly well with a meatier fish like salmon, cutting through the oiliness it can sometimes take on.
This made a cool, light, refreshing meal that managed to convey a casual elegance, delicious but understated. It’s the kind of dish I’d expect to see on the lunch menu at a country club. It came out near perfectly, and allowed for a great deal of flexibility in choosing the fish. It’s rare to find a creamy sauce that makes a dish seem lighter, more rare still is one that shows off the fish without trying to hid a thing.
