TOURNEDOS de poisson, the last of Jeanine's seabass (sniff)

Okay, sorry, folks, this isn't much, but it completes a tetralogy of fish posts developing from a sizeable donation of white seabass from my colleague. So far, I've been through three raw dishes, and by today, the fish is almost certainly still good for raw use…but heck, I might as well enjoy some cooked fish as well.

In my previous post, I made pokie, which being a tartare, is not a picky dish when it comes to the shape of the pieces of fish being used. Planning ahead, I cut seven perfect medallions (tournedos) and squirreled them away before dicing the remainder for the pokie. Those medallions are now the final act—but jeezus, this is just cooking fish…so…pedestrian after exploring the exciting possibilities of raw fish.

But wait—I did mention before that oversized white seabass turns to rubber if improperly cooked. It happened to my sister once when she decided to cook dinner (this was when I was a kid), and the experience was so traumatic that she would never cook fish again. The scars left from completely ruining a premium ingredient are deep and burning and may never heal, and my sister would thereverafter be consigned to a diet heavier on red meat than it otherwise would be and the unhealthy consequences of its saturated fats and cholesterol. So cooking seabass can be detrimental to your well-being and sanity after all, so maybe it's a good idea to at least cover how not to f*ck it up royally, à la Jacquie.

These particular fish medallions are meant to be cooked through—not just seared on the outside and raw in the middle. I would venture to say that for cooked seabass, the raw-in-the-middle thing just doesn't work. Knowing this, I had cut the tournedos relatively thin (about 1 cm), for quick cooking on a wickedly hot surface.

For me, that hot surface comes in the form of a cast-iron skillet. The penalty for using a non-reactive surface like nonstick or stainless steel is not huge, except for a slight deficit in browning. The important thing is that the surface is really hot when the fish is put in the pan.

I put oil (olive—or anything with a high smoke point) into the pan just before cooking the fish. This keeps the smoke to a minimum and gives less time for the heat-driven funky reactions that chemically change the structure of the fats into things you're better off not eating.

Once the fish is in the pan, I don't touch it again until the first side is done and browned. The guaranteed way to make rubbery seabass is to cook at insufficient heat and flip the pieces over and over.

The second side doesn't require as much time, as there will be some of the cooking occurring with residual heat from the top as well as new heat from the pan below.

As with any sautéed meat, it's a good idea to move the tournedos to a plate and allow it to sit a bit for even heat distribution. This gives you a chance to deglaze the skillet and make a quick sauce. Now would be the time to add white wine, butter (salted, of course), herbs, cream, whatever you like.