Weeknight Dinner: White Fish Fillets with Vermouth, Lemon, Tomatoes and Olives
Writing about Greenwich Village last month, I had to include a shout-out to Florent, the visionary restaurant from a time and place when the Meatpacking District wasn't chic and trendy but dark and dangerous and when opening a quality restaurant in the area was an act of divine madness. In those days, the Meatpacking District was a shadowy area along the West Side Highway, between the disreputable fringes of the West Village and the gentrifying southern border of Chelsea. As shadow districts frequently are, it was home to a cluster of nightclubs, including Mother, the urban home of innumerable legendary club nights such as the spectacular Night of a Thousand Stevies. A film currently playing the art house circuit and also available on some pay-per-view services chronicles the story of Florent, but what I will say is that it was impossible to get a bad meal there, and impossible not to have a good time.
At no time was this truer than Bastille Day. On this day the owner, himself French, took the party to the cobblestones, in a dementia of rococo finery that included powdered wigs, exaggerated beauty marks, outsized ruffles and a towering cake. In retrospect it was, if nothing else, genius marketing. Just as is true in the dead of winter, at no time do we need a party more than in the dead of summer. Enough time has passed for the high energy party of Pride Weekend to be settling into memory; even July Fourth seems a while ago. A Bastille Day party, especially outside of la belle France, is an opportunity to get together to eat good food and drink good wine, for reasons that need not be more pressing than it's hot and summer is half over.
That said, it is done for Americans (especially those of us avec French ancestry) to mark the accomplishments of French culture on Bastille Day. Even if your striped boatneck sweater is in storage for the summer and your beret is being re-blocked at the milliner's, it's perfectly acceptable -- especially in this heat -- to remain chez vous. Truffaut and Godard find themselves queued in many a home theatre on this day, as do the Cinema du Look films of the 1980s. And many bottles of French wine are uncorked, from the lusty reds of Burgundy to deceptively elegant rosés, from gemlike Alsatian whites to the crown jewel of brut Champagne.
For those nights at home, La Maison Urbaine has le dîner au nuit de semaine très Gallic. This weeknight dinner is inspired by the French facility with seafood, one example of which is the divinely simple technique of braising fish fillets in a low oven with vermouth and butter. So cooking the fish yields a firm, well-flavored fillet that doesn't disintegrate upon contact with either the serving paddle or the sauce. The sauce in this preparation is a riff on Sauce Provençale; this one a chunky confit of juicy plum tomatoes, strident oil-cured olives and friendly herbs. If you prefer, prepare a more traditional French sauce for fish, such as Chivry (white wine, shallots), Ravigote (herbs, capers, onion), or Choron (tarragon, tomatoes, egg yolk). However you prepare your sauce, serve your fish over a daub of white risotto or soft polenta, accompanied by steamed asparagus or a fennel salad and concluding with a selection of delicate French pastries. As you're pouring the last of the Bordeaux you may find yourself singing the Marseillaise, or at least raising a glass to la belle France.
White Fish Fillets with Vermouth, Lemon, Tomatoes and Olives
Obtain fresh fish from a reputable fishmonger. Ask what's fresh that day; the monger should show you a daily catch that evidences clear eyes and no odor other than a clean, briny smell. Have the monger cut fresh fillets or steaks (depending on the fish) and cook them soon after they're cut. This recipe serves two but can easily be doubled.
For the fish
2 firm white-fleshed fish fillets or steaks, 8 - 10 ounces each, such as sole, flounder, halibut or red snapper
1 small white onion
1 medium lemon, preferably organic
3 tablespoons dry vermouth
4 - 6 stems fresh fragrant herbs, such as thyme, chervil, basil, savory, bay leaf or a mixture of these
Unsalted butter
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
For the sauce
1 pound fresh plum tomatoes
1/2 pound oil-cured black olives
3 medium cloves garlic
2 tablespoons dry vermouth
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Prepare the fillets
1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Place a few drops of commercial produce cleaner into a small bowl. Fill the bowl halfway with water.
Place the lemon in the cleaning solution. While it is submerged, rub the lemon with your hands to remove produce wax and other residue.
3. Remove the lemon from the cleaning solution and rinse under cool water until clean. Place the lemon on a paper towel to dry. Remove stems if any from the tomatoes and place the tomatoes in the cleaning solution.
4. Butter a glass or ceramic baking dish large enough to hold the fillets. Cut a piece of parchment paper large enough to fit inside the dish; butter the paper. Place the dish near your working surface and carefully place the buttered parchment paper in the refrigerator.
5. Peel the onion and remove the root and stem ends. Cut the onion horizontally into rounds.
6. Place half of the onion rounds on the bottom of the buttered baking dish.
7. Unwrap the fillets and blot dry with clean paper towels if warranted. Gently lay each fillet across the onions in the baking dish. For fillets that were cut flat (leaving one side of exposed flesh and one side of skin), place the fillet so that the flesh is facing upward and the skin is resting on the onions.
8. Season each fillet lightly with salt and with several grindings of fresh black pepper. Lay the herbs upon the fillets, evenly dividing the herbs between the fillets.
9. Remove the stem and blossom ends from the cleaned lemon. Cut the lemon horizontally into rounds.
10. Place the lemon slices upon the herbs on the fillets, evenly dividing the lemon slices between the fillets.
11. Measure out the vermouth and splash the prepared fillets with the vermouth. It is okay if the vermouth seeps down into the fish flesh or onto the bottom of the pan.
12. Carefully remove the buttered piece of parchment paper from the refrigerator. Carefully lay the parchment paper, buttered side down, over the prepared fillets.
13. Tear off a length of aluminum foil large enough to cover the baking dish. Cover the baking dish tightly with the foil, crimping the edges to form a tight seal.
14. Place the baking dish in the oven. Cook the fillets undisturbed for 30 minutes.
Make the sauce
1. While the fish is braising, pour the tomatoes from the cleaning solution into a colander. Rinse the tomatoes thoroughly with cool water. Leave the tomatoes in the colander to drain.
2. Place a sauté pan on the stovetop. Drizzle the pan with a four-count of olive oil. Turn the burner to low. Place the salt and the pepper mill safely beside the stovetop.
3. Peel the garlic and remove the root end. Half each clove; remove and discard any sprouting from the center. Slice each half lengthways into slivers and then each sliver lengthways into matchsticks. Cut across the matchsticks to mince. Scrape the minced garlic into the pan containing the heating olive oil.
4. Cut the remaining half of onion rounds into crescents. Cut across the crescents to form large dice. Scrape the diced onion into the pan containing the garlic and the olive oil.
5. Add the red pepper flakes to the garlic, onion and olive oil. Swirl all of the ingredients together.
6. While the onion, garlic and pepper start cooking, place a cleaned tomato on a clean cutting board devoted to fruits and vegetables. Use a sharp paring knife or a tomato knife to half the tomato from stem to blossom end; halve each half. Use the knife to roughly cut the quartered tomato into chunks; it is okay if there are some large chunks. Scrape the rough-cut tomato along with any expressed tomato juice into the sauté pan along with the heating onion, garlic and pepper. Sprinkle the tomato with salt and several grindings of fresh black pepper. Do not stir; the onions and garlic should stay on the bottom of the pan. Repeat with the remaining tomatoes.
7. Once all of the tomatoes have been added to the sauté pan, measure the vermouth and the oregano into the pan.
8. Cover the pan and simmer, undisturbed, fifteen minutes.
9. While the tomato mixture is cooking, place a small bowl next to the container of oil-cured olives.
10. Hold an olive over the olive container and squeeze it so that the pit pops out. Let the pit fall into the container and place the olive in the bowl. It is okay if the olive gets a bit beaten up. Repeat until all of the olives are pitted.
11. After fifteen minutes, remove the lid from the pan. Stir the mixture well to incorporate the ingredients; the onions and tomatoes should be soft and the sauce should be thick and very fragrant.
12. Scrape the olives and any accumulated juices into the tomato mixture; stir. Replace the lid and continue cooking, lowering heat and stirring as needed to keep pace while the fish completes cooking.
Assemble the plates
1. After 30 minutes, remove the baking dish from the oven and gently peel back the foil and the parchment. The fish should evidence a fragrant steam and have expressed a silky pan juice, while the fish should be firm and white. If warranted, place dish back in oven to finish cooking, typically 5 more minutes.
2. Once fillets are ready, remove the baking dish from the oven and gently remove and discard the foil and parchment. Use a fish spatula to gently remove each fillet, doing your best not to disturb the lemon-herb garnish, and place on a serving plate.
3. Use a hot pad to tip the baking dish so that the pan juices pool at the bottom. Use a kitchen spoon to catch some of the pan juice and to drizzle each fillet with a spoonful of the pan juice.
4. Decant the tomato-olive sauce into a serving bowl and pass the bowl at the table for each guest to sauce their fish as they'd like.
At no time was this truer than Bastille Day. On this day the owner, himself French, took the party to the cobblestones, in a dementia of rococo finery that included powdered wigs, exaggerated beauty marks, outsized ruffles and a towering cake. In retrospect it was, if nothing else, genius marketing. Just as is true in the dead of winter, at no time do we need a party more than in the dead of summer. Enough time has passed for the high energy party of Pride Weekend to be settling into memory; even July Fourth seems a while ago. A Bastille Day party, especially outside of la belle France, is an opportunity to get together to eat good food and drink good wine, for reasons that need not be more pressing than it's hot and summer is half over.
That said, it is done for Americans (especially those of us avec French ancestry) to mark the accomplishments of French culture on Bastille Day. Even if your striped boatneck sweater is in storage for the summer and your beret is being re-blocked at the milliner's, it's perfectly acceptable -- especially in this heat -- to remain chez vous. Truffaut and Godard find themselves queued in many a home theatre on this day, as do the Cinema du Look films of the 1980s. And many bottles of French wine are uncorked, from the lusty reds of Burgundy to deceptively elegant rosés, from gemlike Alsatian whites to the crown jewel of brut Champagne.
For those nights at home, La Maison Urbaine has le dîner au nuit de semaine très Gallic. This weeknight dinner is inspired by the French facility with seafood, one example of which is the divinely simple technique of braising fish fillets in a low oven with vermouth and butter. So cooking the fish yields a firm, well-flavored fillet that doesn't disintegrate upon contact with either the serving paddle or the sauce. The sauce in this preparation is a riff on Sauce Provençale; this one a chunky confit of juicy plum tomatoes, strident oil-cured olives and friendly herbs. If you prefer, prepare a more traditional French sauce for fish, such as Chivry (white wine, shallots), Ravigote (herbs, capers, onion), or Choron (tarragon, tomatoes, egg yolk). However you prepare your sauce, serve your fish over a daub of white risotto or soft polenta, accompanied by steamed asparagus or a fennel salad and concluding with a selection of delicate French pastries. As you're pouring the last of the Bordeaux you may find yourself singing the Marseillaise, or at least raising a glass to la belle France.
White Fish Fillets with Vermouth, Lemon, Tomatoes and Olives
Obtain fresh fish from a reputable fishmonger. Ask what's fresh that day; the monger should show you a daily catch that evidences clear eyes and no odor other than a clean, briny smell. Have the monger cut fresh fillets or steaks (depending on the fish) and cook them soon after they're cut. This recipe serves two but can easily be doubled.
For the fish
2 firm white-fleshed fish fillets or steaks, 8 - 10 ounces each, such as sole, flounder, halibut or red snapper
1 small white onion
1 medium lemon, preferably organic
3 tablespoons dry vermouth
4 - 6 stems fresh fragrant herbs, such as thyme, chervil, basil, savory, bay leaf or a mixture of these
Unsalted butter
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
For the sauce
1 pound fresh plum tomatoes
1/2 pound oil-cured black olives
3 medium cloves garlic
2 tablespoons dry vermouth
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Prepare the fillets
1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Place a few drops of commercial produce cleaner into a small bowl. Fill the bowl halfway with water.
Place the lemon in the cleaning solution. While it is submerged, rub the lemon with your hands to remove produce wax and other residue.
3. Remove the lemon from the cleaning solution and rinse under cool water until clean. Place the lemon on a paper towel to dry. Remove stems if any from the tomatoes and place the tomatoes in the cleaning solution.
4. Butter a glass or ceramic baking dish large enough to hold the fillets. Cut a piece of parchment paper large enough to fit inside the dish; butter the paper. Place the dish near your working surface and carefully place the buttered parchment paper in the refrigerator.
5. Peel the onion and remove the root and stem ends. Cut the onion horizontally into rounds.
6. Place half of the onion rounds on the bottom of the buttered baking dish.
7. Unwrap the fillets and blot dry with clean paper towels if warranted. Gently lay each fillet across the onions in the baking dish. For fillets that were cut flat (leaving one side of exposed flesh and one side of skin), place the fillet so that the flesh is facing upward and the skin is resting on the onions.
8. Season each fillet lightly with salt and with several grindings of fresh black pepper. Lay the herbs upon the fillets, evenly dividing the herbs between the fillets.
9. Remove the stem and blossom ends from the cleaned lemon. Cut the lemon horizontally into rounds.
10. Place the lemon slices upon the herbs on the fillets, evenly dividing the lemon slices between the fillets.
11. Measure out the vermouth and splash the prepared fillets with the vermouth. It is okay if the vermouth seeps down into the fish flesh or onto the bottom of the pan.
12. Carefully remove the buttered piece of parchment paper from the refrigerator. Carefully lay the parchment paper, buttered side down, over the prepared fillets.
13. Tear off a length of aluminum foil large enough to cover the baking dish. Cover the baking dish tightly with the foil, crimping the edges to form a tight seal.
14. Place the baking dish in the oven. Cook the fillets undisturbed for 30 minutes.
Make the sauce
1. While the fish is braising, pour the tomatoes from the cleaning solution into a colander. Rinse the tomatoes thoroughly with cool water. Leave the tomatoes in the colander to drain.
2. Place a sauté pan on the stovetop. Drizzle the pan with a four-count of olive oil. Turn the burner to low. Place the salt and the pepper mill safely beside the stovetop.
3. Peel the garlic and remove the root end. Half each clove; remove and discard any sprouting from the center. Slice each half lengthways into slivers and then each sliver lengthways into matchsticks. Cut across the matchsticks to mince. Scrape the minced garlic into the pan containing the heating olive oil.
4. Cut the remaining half of onion rounds into crescents. Cut across the crescents to form large dice. Scrape the diced onion into the pan containing the garlic and the olive oil.
5. Add the red pepper flakes to the garlic, onion and olive oil. Swirl all of the ingredients together.
6. While the onion, garlic and pepper start cooking, place a cleaned tomato on a clean cutting board devoted to fruits and vegetables. Use a sharp paring knife or a tomato knife to half the tomato from stem to blossom end; halve each half. Use the knife to roughly cut the quartered tomato into chunks; it is okay if there are some large chunks. Scrape the rough-cut tomato along with any expressed tomato juice into the sauté pan along with the heating onion, garlic and pepper. Sprinkle the tomato with salt and several grindings of fresh black pepper. Do not stir; the onions and garlic should stay on the bottom of the pan. Repeat with the remaining tomatoes.
7. Once all of the tomatoes have been added to the sauté pan, measure the vermouth and the oregano into the pan.
8. Cover the pan and simmer, undisturbed, fifteen minutes.
9. While the tomato mixture is cooking, place a small bowl next to the container of oil-cured olives.
10. Hold an olive over the olive container and squeeze it so that the pit pops out. Let the pit fall into the container and place the olive in the bowl. It is okay if the olive gets a bit beaten up. Repeat until all of the olives are pitted.
11. After fifteen minutes, remove the lid from the pan. Stir the mixture well to incorporate the ingredients; the onions and tomatoes should be soft and the sauce should be thick and very fragrant.
12. Scrape the olives and any accumulated juices into the tomato mixture; stir. Replace the lid and continue cooking, lowering heat and stirring as needed to keep pace while the fish completes cooking.
Assemble the plates
1. After 30 minutes, remove the baking dish from the oven and gently peel back the foil and the parchment. The fish should evidence a fragrant steam and have expressed a silky pan juice, while the fish should be firm and white. If warranted, place dish back in oven to finish cooking, typically 5 more minutes.
2. Once fillets are ready, remove the baking dish from the oven and gently remove and discard the foil and parchment. Use a fish spatula to gently remove each fillet, doing your best not to disturb the lemon-herb garnish, and place on a serving plate.
3. Use a hot pad to tip the baking dish so that the pan juices pool at the bottom. Use a kitchen spoon to catch some of the pan juice and to drizzle each fillet with a spoonful of the pan juice.
4. Decant the tomato-olive sauce into a serving bowl and pass the bowl at the table for each guest to sauce their fish as they'd like.
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