Red Fish

This recipe is so easy that I hesitated doing a post on it. But since my blog hopefully inspires people to cook more often, and be less intimidated about home cooking, I just knew I had to follow through with the post.

This recipe involves a white fish, and a tomato-based topping that just takes a few minutes to prepare. The only difference for me when I prepared this recipe, is that I got to use a redfish for the first time.

If any of you remember, I have a girlfriend whose husband fishes around the world, and they gave me a giant filet of redfish from the Gulf of Mexico to try. I also had a wonderful time discovering wahoo on this post and a fresh chunk of tuna on that post.

A red fish, or redfish, I’ve seen it both ways, has coin-sized scales, that feel more like sea shells than fish scales. I was told to cook it with the scales attached, so that’s exactly what I did.

But for this recipe, any white fish would be delicious. If you’re not a fish lover, you could even substitute chicken or veal scallops.

Mediterranean Style Redfish

1 large filet of redfish, or smaller filets of a white-fleshed fish
Drizzle of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Place the redfish in an oiled baking dish, scales side down. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with the oregano, salt, and pepper.

Bake until done*. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, but it’s important not to overcook the fish.

Alternatively, you can broil it, but you need to watch it carefully.

For the tomato topping:

Olive oil
1 shallot, diced
4 Roma tomatoes, diced, seeded
6-8 Kalamata olives, sliced
1 tablespoon or so of capers
Fresh basil leaves

Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to a small skillet. Saute the shallots for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes. Let them cook over medium heat until the liquid has evaporated, and the tomatoes don’t look so raw. Then add the olives and capers and stir well. Heat through.

For this recipe I did a chiffonade of basil. This is just a fancy word to describe a slicing technique. You simply stack about 6 or so leaves of basil together, like this.

Then you roll them into a cigar and slice 1/8″ crosswise slices. This technique creates delicate little curls of basil.

I actually added the basil chiffonade to the tomato mixture, but alternatively, you can save the basil to sprinkle on top of the dish when it’s served.

To serve, slice the large filet of redfish in half, and carefully slide the spatula in between the scaley skin and the fish flesh. Place on a plate and add the warm tomato mixture on top. Add a little salt, if desired.

* I unfortunately can’t give an exact time to cook fish, because there are so many factors. If you’re really unsure, slice into the fish during the cooking process to evaluate if it needs to cook more. The fish will become more opaque, but it should still look soft and tender. Too much cooking and the fish will dry out.