All hail the Berkeley Bowl! In addition to stocking up on probably $250 of somewhat esoteric beer selections (for the cellar), I bought an amazing piece of opah belly there this weekend. They had a bunch of fresh opah fillets in the case, for I think $7/lb. I pointed to the fillet I wanted, and the guy behind the counter picked it up. As soon as he did, I noticed that there was another fillet underneath it that looked quite different. I immediately realized that it was a fillet of pure opah belly! Obviously, I had him grab the belly and put back the first fillet. I got a dinner for two of a decadent amount of pristine opah toro for $7. Wow.

Best of all, I persuaded Jeanette into helping me in the kitchen. I just wanted the company, but she ended up doing a good bit of the work.

We ended up with seared opah belly, chicory and radish salad, and blood orange vinaigrette. So simple, and so delicious.

For the blood orange vinaigrette, Jeanette juiced one and a half blood oranges, added some salt and pepper, then drizzled in peanut oil while I whisked. Blood orange doesn't have as much sugar as a typical salad vinegar (like balsamic), so it's tougher to emulsify oil into it. Adding a pinch of soy lecithin helped out.

For the chicory salad, I cut the thicker ribs out of the chicory and sliced some French breakfast radishes.

For the opah, I saved most of it for searing, and we made a tartare out of the scraps. For searing, I cut the fillet into two planks and salted and peppered them. I heated a thin film of peanut oil in a stainless steel frying pan over medium-high heat. Once the oil was hot but not smoking, I added the planks of opah, pressing each down for better pan contact. Then I didn't touch them for at least a minute or two! That part is very important! If you agitate whatever you're trying to saute, it'll never brown and it'll just keep sticking to the pan. Instead, leave it for a while and it will develop a nice, brown crust, and then release itself. Once the first side had a nice, light-brown crust, I flipped the planks to let the other sides develop a bit of browning. When they were done (very rare or raw in the center, but most of the intramuscular fat no longer solid), I removed the planks to paper towels to rest and drain.

To complete, I tossed the chicory with some of the vinaigrette and plated it, then arranged some radish slices on top. I ground just a bit of fresh pepper on top. I sliced the opah belly diagonally, against the grain, and arranged the slices on the plates. Then I drizzled more of the vinaigrette over and around the fish. Finally, I sliced a couple thin slices of the remaining blood orange half, draped one over the fish on each plate, and squeezed the remaining juice over everything.

Absolutely delicious.

Posted by Barzelay on 2008/12/29 @ 5:03 | Comments (2) | Seafood, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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