Baked Black Bass with Vegetables in a Sake and Ginger Marinade

Black bass has a reputation as a fish for people who own boats, but sea bass from the Atlantic shows up at good fish counters most of the spring, and it is one of the best fish for a home oven. The flesh is white, fine and mild, a little richer than cod, and the skin is thin enough to eat. This is a quick, bright dish: fillets sit for 15 minutes in a marinade of sake, rice vinegar, white wine, soy sauce, fresh ginger, garlic, cilantro and toasted sesame oil, then bake for about ten minutes on a bed of stir-fried julienned vegetables. A few spoonfuls of the marinade go over the top, and the juices from the fish run down into the vegetables. Rice or soba noodles finish the meal.

It is a good dinner party dish because the only last-minute work is ten minutes of oven time, and nearly all of that you spend opening wine.

Whole fish or fillets

A whole black bass looks wonderful and is worth roasting on its own some night. For this dish, fillets are better. They take on the marinade quickly and evenly, cook in a fraction of the time, and sit flat on the vegetables so every bite gets some of both. They also make serving a crowd simple: no bones to deal with at the table.

If you buy a whole fish, a 2 1/2-pound bass gives two fillets of roughly 10 ounces each. Ask the fishmonger to fillet it and keep the skin on, and to give you the head and frame if you make stock. When buying fillets, look for flesh that is translucent and glossy, not dull or gaping apart, with no smell beyond clean salt water. Run a finger down the center line of each fillet and pull out any pin bones with tweezers or needle-nose pliers.

If black bass is not available, striped bass, branzino fillets, haddock or a thick piece of cod all work. Haddock and cod are flakier and need gentler handling when you lift them.

The marinade, and how long

This is a marinade for flavor, not for tenderizing. The vinegar and wine are acidic, and fish is delicate, so 10 to 20 minutes is the right window. Past 30 minutes the outside of the fillet begins to turn white and firm, as if it had been cooked in lime juice, and the finished fish is dry at the edges.

Keep the ginger fresh and finely minced or grated. Dried ginger has none of the heat. The sesame oil should be the dark toasted kind; a tablespoon is plenty, since it is strong. A teaspoon of sugar balances the vinegar, and a small amount of chili paste or a pinch of red pepper flakes adds a quiet warmth without taking over.

Cutting the vegetables

Julienne means matchsticks, about 1/8 inch thick and 2 inches long. It looks fussy but it is the reason the vegetables cook through in the time it takes to bake the fish. Carrots are the only vegetable that really needs it; onion goes into thin wedges, napa cabbage into ribbons, and mushrooms into slices. A mandoline with a julienne blade does a pound of carrots in two minutes. A sharp knife takes five.

The vegetables get a quick stir-fry in a hot pan before they go into the baking dish. You are not cooking them through, just wilting them and giving the onions some color, so they finish softly under the fish without releasing a puddle of water.

From the recipe box

Baked black bass with vegetables

Serves 4

Prep

30 min

Cook

20 min

Total

50 min

Show amounts in

US cups & spoons metric

Marinade

• 1/4 cup60 ml sake
• 1/4 cup60 ml unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup60 ml dry white wine
• 3 tbsp45 ml soy sauce
• 1 tbsp15 ml toasted sesame oil
• 2 tbsp12 g fresh ginger, peeled and finely minced
• 11 garlic clove, minced
• 2 tbsp4 g chopped fresh cilantro, leaves and tender stems
• 1 tsp4 g sugar
• 1 tsp5 ml fresh lime juice

Fish and vegetables

• 1 1/2 lb680 g skin-on black bass fillets, in 4 portions
• 2 tbsp30 ml peanut or other neutral oil
• 11 small onion, cut into thin wedges
• 22 medium carrots, julienned
• 1/2 lb225 g cremini or white mushrooms, sliced
• 4 cups280 g napa cabbage, cut into ribbons
• 1 1/2 tsp3 g fresh ginger, chopped
• 11 garlic clove, minced
• to tasteto taste chopped cilantro and lime wedges, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and set out a baking dish large enough to hold the fillets in one layer.
2. Whisk all the marinade ingredients together in a shallow dish until the sugar dissolves.
3. Lay the fillets in the marinade skin side up, spoon some over the top and leave them 10 to 20 minutes at room temperature while you cook the vegetables, turning once.
4. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Stir-fry the onion for 2 minutes until it starts to brown at the edges.
5. Add the carrots, mushrooms, cabbage, ginger and garlic and toss for 2 to 3 minutes, just until the cabbage wilts. Spread the vegetables in the baking dish.
6. Lift the fillets out of the marinade, lay them skin side up on the vegetables and spoon 3 tablespoons of the marinade over the fish.
7. Bake 8 to 12 minutes, depending on thickness, until the flesh is opaque all the way through and flakes when pressed with a fork, about 140°F (60°C) at the center.
8. Scatter with cilantro and serve straight from the dish with lime wedges, rice or soba noodles.

Notes from the kitchen

• Discard any marinade the raw fish sat in unless you boil it for 1 minute first.
• The vegetables can be cut and the marinade mixed up to 6 hours ahead; keep both refrigerated.

Timing the evening

For a dinner for four with rice, the order goes like this. One hour before eating, cut the vegetables and mix the marinade. Forty minutes before, start the rice; it holds happily off the heat with the lid on. Twenty-five minutes before, heat the oven and put the fish in the marinade. Fifteen minutes before, stir-fry the vegetables and assemble the dish. Ten minutes before, the dish goes in the oven, and when it comes out the rice is ready and you serve.

Scaling and serving family style

This dish was made to be put in the middle of the table. Bring the baking dish out on a board, with a wide spatula so people can lift a fillet and its bed of vegetables together. For eight, double everything and use two baking dishes rather than one crowded one; fish packed tightly steams and turns pale. Allow 6 ounces of fillet per person for a main course, or 4 ounces if there are several other dishes.

A bowl of rice, a bowl of cucumber pickles and an extra jug of soy sauce with a little sesame oil stirred in round out the table.

Variations

Swap the cabbage for bok choy halves or snow peas. Add a stalk of minced lemongrass to the marinade for a brighter, more fragrant dish. The same marinade and vegetables work with salmon, though salmon needs a few more minutes in the oven. If the menu already has a roasted whole fish such as the Mediterranean-style red snapper on another night, this makes a good contrast: lighter, sharper and quicker. For a first course before it, a few thin slices of gravlax on cucumber rounds suit the ginger and sesame. More fish and dinner party mains are under Main Dishes.

The fish is done when a fork pushed into the thickest part meets no resistance and the flakes slide apart in big, wet pieces. Dry flakes mean it went two minutes too long, so check early.