WHITE SEABASS CARPACCIO

White sea bass, Atractoscion nobilis, are known around here for being generally quite large (10-30 kg), running around in large schools, getting famously stupid when they are hungry, and being wonderful to eat. This summer I've gone fishing for them twice already and have come home empty-handed both times, which has thrown a monkey wrench in my plans to post fish dishes to Frangykitchen.

My luck changed today when I got an email from my dear colleague Jeanine, who is an expert on fish physiology and is married to another fish researcher and captain of a fish-research vessel. "Jeff," she writes, "you're pitiful. I'll leave a chunk of seabass in the fridge at work for you."

I wasn't planning on driving in to work today, but I've gotten fish from Jeanine often enough to know that when she offers fish, you jump at the opportunity. The fish she brings me is always in pristine condition and never frozen—suitable for raw dishes like sashimi, tartare, and carpaccio. This chunk was the picture of seafood perfection—about a kilo of fillet (skin still on), cut from the front half of the right side of a fish that must have weighed over 40 lb (18.14 kg). Okay, right or left doesn't make a difference, but the rest does.

The first of three raw dishes I'm making is carpaccio. What's the difference between fish carpaccio and sashimi? Well besides the fact that one is Italian and the other Japanese, it's mostly about how the fish gets "dressed." With little variation, sashimi is uniformly-sized and overlapping slices of raw fish presented simply on a small dish, and it is dipped into a mixture of soy sauce and wasabi. Carpaccio, is more elaborate, and the fish itself is not always simply raw but may be cured or marinated—just not cooked. In carpaccio, the slices tend to be thin but broad and presented in a single layer on a large dish, with toppings that vary. Because the slices are usually larger, carpaccio requires the fork-and-knife approach, whereas sashimi is cut to bite-size and eaten with chopsticks.

White seabass is good for sashimi but ideal for carpaccio, because it's large and very firm (easy to slice off large, flat, thin slices), and because it has relatively little flavor on its own and takes nicely to a variety of condiments. Here's what I did.

I cut slices from the center of the fillet and parallel with the longitudinal axis of the fish (if this were sashimi, I would slice in a very different direction). In case you don't know this, you need a very sharp knife for this work. If all of your kitchen knives are dull, you shouldn't be reading here anyways, so go away. All of you squeamish raw-fish haters can leave as well. Bye.


I used a light marinade to make the fish less sashimi-like and more carpaccio-ish. Squeezed a lime over the slices, drizzled tequila, and then some walnut oil, mixed it up and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours while I went to the gym and to the grocery to get some fresh chives.

Back home, it's put a plate in the fridge to chill, slice tomatoes, prepare a "vinaigrette" (sans vinegar) with the juice of another lime, a teaspoon or so of white wine, about a teaspoon of ginger juice (I use my garlic press, which I never use for garlic so it should really be called a ginger press), salt, a bit of sugar, olive oil, and a half teaspoon of mayonnaise from a jar to help emulsify. The sauce needs to be kind of salty to flavor the raw fish, which is thus far unsalted. Besides the vinaigrette, the fish gets liberal sprinklings of chopped chives and shichimi togarashi, a Japanese red pepper spice mix that adds just the perfect "punch" to an otherwise very tame dish.


Great summertime snack by the pool!