Sanctuary from The Mad World
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. - Orson Welles

This simple dish is wonderful. The beans are sweet from the butter, the fish’s skin is crisp and flesh tender and the brown butter sauce is lemony. I served them with Canary wrinkly potatoes (Papas Arrugadas) for a delicious summer dinner.

I read somewhere that the Keller’s secret to crisp fish skin is to scrape the skin with the blade of a knife. So I did - the silvery bits came off - and the fish skins were crispy and smoky. Beginner’s luck? I’m not sure.  But I’m adding that technique to my repertoire.  

The recipe is modified from Bouchon’s Trout with Haricot Verts and Almonds. I skipped the almond because I didn’t have them.

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Servings: for two

This simple salad from NYT is a wonderful accompaniment to grilled fish. Not only the mushroom slices keep the fish flakes firmly in the middle of the fork, the flavours are lemony and fresh. I eliminate the parmesan as I prefer the salad to be light and Mediterranean-like. The combination results in one of the best summer lunches I’ve made. 

For the grilled fish, I picked up a whole "Royal Dorale" as it’s called here. I don’t know what it’s called in English. Googling results in ‘Mediterranean Sea Bass" or "Sea Bream". Not sure. Normally Royal Dorale is served ‘en papilotte’ with cherry tomatoes but I grill the fish using the Indonesian technique of massaging every kind of white meat with lemon juice to get rid of the fishy smell. As we can’t barbecue, I use my oven to grill. It works as well.

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Servings: for two appetizers

When we ate it in St. John in London, I knew the dish was different: there was a clean, slightly sweetish flavour I couldn’t identify in the dressing which I knew must come from the broth of steamed mussels. Initially I thought it was the combination with shredded cabbage but now I know: it is the use of celery.

My husband loves this dish and often orders moules marinières et frites or mussels and french fries whenever we’re near the sea. Normally, it’s cooked with wine, shallots and parsley. This recipe, I think, is a great twist to a classic. I’ve always been wary of cooking clams. But now no more. It’s really easy and almost fool proof.

I modified this recipe from Nose to Tail Eating’s mussels with cucumber and dill.

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Corn and Shrimp are my favourite food items. So when I read this recipe at Bitten, I just had to make it.

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