• Sablefish - A fatty, white-fleshed fish that is exceedingly flaky. Sauteed.
• Grapefruit - Segments of citrus for the acid and sweetness. I marinated them in beet juice, mostly because I wasn't happy with the color of the grapefruit. It turned out that the beet actually came through in the flavor (at least for me, because I knew it was there--otherwise I wouldn't have noticed--it was very subtle) and added an earthy deliciousness.
• Creme fraiche, whipped with minced chive (and salt, of course). My one-spoon quenelles are getting better. I somehow photographed the plate where they just looked okay.
• Fennel, caramelized very slowly with a bit of olive oil and some added sugar, then drained on paper towels, chopped, and plated using a ring mold.
• Olive Oil Cracker - I made them as described in the previous post, but I set up a sort of mold on my baking sheet to give them a rolling landscape kind of shape. I taped paper towel rolls to the baking sheet, several inches apart, pressed down on one of them to compress it halfway, then draped aluminum foil over the whole thing and taped it down as well. When I went to bake the olive oil crackers, I simply draped them over the shape I'd created, baked them otherwise normally, and let them cool slightly before removing them from the baking sheet.

For some reason, Jeanette and I have been loving chive and creme fraiche lately. It's a very common combination, but I'd never used it until I put it on scallop sashimi a couple months ago. It worked really well here with the fish, and really well with the grapefruit, and, more obviously, really well with the cracker. In fact, the leftover crackers were all quickly consumed the next day with the leftover chive-creme fraiche. The caramelized fennel was easy to overlook because the way I plated it (under the cracker) hid it. However, I think that the earthy sweetness of the fennel really brought the dish together, grounded it, and balanced the flavors.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/06/08 @ 23:48 | Comments (2) | Baking, Seafood, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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