Much like the other turbot dish that was supposed to be for black cod that I made for the Great Volk/Watson christmas Extravaganza, this dish was supposed to be for halibut, but it isn’t halibut season and the Fish Depot in downtown St. John’s was bought out of frozen halibut for Christmas, so the only firm-fleshed white fish around was turbot. That was just fine for me, since I’m in love with this fish. The stocks are good, it comes from Labrador instead of being flown all the way from the Pacific, and while you won’t find it in grocery stores, you will find incredibly good quality stuff at the Fish Depot on Duckworth street. And please, please, please don’t buy Atlantic halibut, which is horribly overfished. If you do insist on halibut opt for the wild Pacific version and choke on the carbon footprint.
On to the recipe – I’ve never made escabèche before. I’d heard of it, and thought it was a marinated fish dish from Spain served at room temperature kind of like a tartar or a more vinegary Japanese nanbanzuke. It turns out I was sort of right, but I wouldn’t have won the escabeche prize or anything. Sure, there’s some sherry vinegar involved, but basically it’s a seared fish (not raw like tartar and not deep-fried like nanbanzuke) topped with a vinegar dressing or sauce and left to infuse for at least 10 minutes or overnight. I like the overnight option but ended up serving the dish after only 30 minutes and there was MORE than enough flavour for the more elaborate sauce recipe in “Good Fish” by Becky Selengut. I also think there’s some variation in how saucy the dish should be, so if there’s more sauce for the fish to soak in it makes more sense to let it sit overnight. This recipe, however, calls for the liquid to be cooked down and then a second sauce is served on the side.
Basically the fish is coated in a spice rub of freshly ground black pepper, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, bay leaves, brown sugar, and salt, and left in the fridge while you make a parsley sauce with sherry vinegar, capers, currants, anchovies, red pepper flakes, almonds and a whole lot of olive oil. Really, more olive oil than my Greek friend’s mother would use on her salad greens, and that’s saying something. And the sad thing is it’s not even necessary because the recipe says to just serve the salsa verde on the side. But I drizzled the fish with it (and I used more than enough – see the pictures if you don’t believe me) and there was still tons left over. It breaks my heart to throw out more than 1/4 cup of perfectly good olive oil! So if I were to make the recipe again I’d cut some of that oil AND shrink the total quantity of sauce.
Fortunately for me, the leftover almond salsa verde makes a great salad dressing…
Now the sauce is good, but the garnish is delicious. After searing the fish (3-4 minutes per side in 1 tbsp of oil over HIGH heat! I love it!) you cook some diced red onions (I used shallots) and salt in the leftover fish juices and a little extra oil if necessary to keep the onions from sticking, then add roughly chopped almonds (this is messy work if you don’t have a spice grinder. My almonds flew all over the cutting board, as if they knew they were going to be eaten and were putting up a good fight. They mostly failed), a carrot peeled in ribbons (this takes forever…but I guess it’s worth it – the carrot cooks faster this way and you end up with a kind of carrot slaw), more sweet currants, and some smoked paprika. Then deglaze with water mixed with water, and finally stir in 2 tbsp of sherry vinegar at the end. The topping goes over the fish and the sherry vinegar soaks just a little into it. Then the parsley sauce adds this incredible punch of olive oil and a bit more sharp sweetness. Really it’s a flavour explosion. Sweetness from the currants, sourness from the vinegar, and salt from the capers and anchovies, plus an incredible crust on the fish. The green sauce looks a bit gross, so adding too much when serving is an eyesore. But it sure does taste like heaven. I wish you’d been there. I wish I was still there.
My doubled recipe below serves 8. Buy the book for the instructions since my cobbled together story above is intentionally not clear enough. I only give the ingredients to satisfy your curiosity.
Spice rub: 1 tsp black peppercorns
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
4 bay leaves (“fresh or dried” – I don’t know too many who would even think about using fresh bay leaves here, and you’d never find them in Newfoundland)
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 lbs halibut fillet cut into 8 equal portions (I didn’t have to fillet this one myself since I got them frozen – flash-frozen on the boat – after they were skinned and filleted by someone much more accomplished at said task than myself. I should watch the www.goodfishbook.com video demo for next time, though)
Salsa Verde: 3/4 cup olive oil (It was supposed to be 1 cup, but that seemed and tasted ridiculous. I ended up using 3/4 cup, which was still a lot! 1/2 cup would probably be enough, especially if it’s a strong-tasting olive oil, but I know the recipes are tested and double tested and quadruple tested before printing, so someone likes their olive oil)
2/3 cup roughly chopped fresh Italian parsley
4 canned or janned anchovies (or boxed – all we could find were Pastene-brand anchovies in oil at the local Sobeys grocery store. They were just fine. Funny, apparently Newfoundlanders don’t like their anchovies since a bunch of other grocery stores didn’t carry them at all. I guess you could use local capelin instead, but nobody would do that either)
4 tbsp sherry vinegar (also impossible to find…all we could find was sherry cooking wine. So either use all white wine vinegar or 3 tbsp white wine vinegar and 1 tbsp sherry cooking wine. You need the acidity to cut through the olive oil)
2 tsp capers
1 tbsp currants (or golden raisins)
12 whole almonds
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt
For the halibut:
2 tbsp vegetable oil (must be a high-heat oil)
For garnish:
1/2 cup diced red onions or shallots
a generous pinch of salt
2 tbsp roughly chopped almonds (the recipe calls for “Marcona almonds”. They’re apparently shorter and sweeter, but I was certainly not going to find those in Newfoundland)
2 small carrots (or 1 large carrot…), sliced into short ribbons using a vegetable peeler (this is a bit annoying, as noted above…)
2 tbsp currants (or raisins)
2 tsp smoked paprika (or regular paprika if that’s all there is)
1/2 cup water
4 tbsp sherry vinegar
Joy
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