Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [146]
Note If you have difficulty finding a whole small fish as indicated in the list of ingredients, and do not want to increase the recipe by using a much bigger fish, buy a 2-pound fillet with the skin on cut from grouper or other large fish. First bake the artichoke slices alone, along with the oil and lemon juice. After 20 minutes, put the fish skin side down in the baking dish, and spoon over it some of the artichokes to cover. Cook for 15 minutes, basting it midway with the juices in the dish.
Baked Fillet of Sole with Tomato, Oregano, and Hot Pepper
GRILLING or crisp-frying, which are the most characteristic Italian methods of handling sole, are successful only with European sole, in particular the small, very firm-fleshed, nutty variety caught in the northern Adriatic. When flatfish from either the Atlantic or Pacific is grilled or fried, its consistency is un-satisfyingly flaky, and its flavor listless, drawbacks that can be minimized by a less brisk cooking mode and a stimulating sauce, as in the baked fillets of the recipe that follows.
For 6 servings
⅔ cup onion sliced very thin
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon garlic chopped very fine
1 cup canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
Salt
2 tablespoons capers, soaked and rinsed as described if packed in salt, drained if in vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh oregano OR 1 teaspoon dried
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill, OR chopped hot red chili pepper, to taste
2 pounds gray sole fillets OR other flatfish fillets
A bake-and-serve dish
1. Preheat oven to 450°.
2. Put the onion and olive oil in a saute pan, turn on the heat to medium, and cook the onion until it softens and becomes colored a light gold. Add the garlic. When the garlic becomes colored a very pale gold, add the cut-up tomatoes with their juice and a few pinches of salt, and stir thoroughly to coat well. Cook at a steady simmer for about 20 minutes, until the oil floats free of the tomatoes. Add the capers, oregano, and ground black or chopped chili pepper, stir two or three times, cook for about a minute longer. Take off heat.
3. Wash the fish fillets in cold water and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels. The fish will be placed in the baking dish with the fillets folded so they meet edge to edge, and in a single layer where they slightly overlap. Choose a bake-and-serve dish just large enough to accommodate them, and smear the bottom with a tablespoon of the tomato sauce. Dip each fillet in the sauce in the pan to coat both sides, then fold it and arrange it in the baking dish as described just above. Pour the remaining sauce over the fish, and place the dish on the uppermost rack of the preheated oven. Bake for about 5 minutes, or slightly more, depending on the thickness of the fillets, but taking care not to overcook them.
4. If, when you remove the dish from the oven you find that the fish has shed some liquid, diluting the sauce, tip the dish, spoon off all the sauce and liquid into a small saucepan, turn the heat on to high, and reduce the sauce to its original density. Pour the sauce over the fish and serve immediately, directly from the baking dish.
My Father’s Fish Soup
EVERY VILLAGE on Italy’s long coastlines makes zuppa di pesce, fish soup. On the Adriatic side it is likely to be called brodetto, on the Tuscan coast caciucco, on the Riviera ciuppin, but there are not enough names around to attach to every variation of the dish. Each town makes it in its distinctive style, of which each family in the town usually has its own version.
I have never had a better zuppa di pesce than the one my father used to make. His secret was to extract the flavor of the tastiest part of any fish, the head, and use it as a base to enrich the soup. We lived in a town facing the best fishing grounds of the Adriatic, and he would bring home from the market a large