October 1, 2004
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Fish Texture
I have two favorite fish dishes, and neither are made anymore. One was the Tandoori Sea Bass made at Raj’s restaurant on University St. in Berkeley, but they closed down years ago. The other was Blue Ginger’s signature Miso Sea Bass. But they now substitute Alaskan butterfish for the Chilean Sea Bass (for environmental / extinction reasons), claiming that the texture is almost the same.
Give me a break, Ming Tsai! Butterfish is a reasonably buttery and flaky fish, but it’s not in the same league as Chilean sea bass. I just learned that Costco now carries Chilean sea bass fillets, which are supposedly excellent despite being frozen. Pricey, too — I think it works out to about $10/lb. The Blue Ginger recipe is very good, but incredibly time-consuming because of the intermediate steps required to make the sauce. I think I may experiment a bit to try to reproduce Raj’s Tandoori sea bass. Mmmmm….
Comments (9)
Chilean Sea Bass is pretty tasty. Probably my favorite cooked fish. I’d feel bad though if they went extinct. I’d shed a tear for that last sea bass…and then eat it.
The dishes you describe sound delicious. Mmmm…fish…
i’ve actually tried the recipe WITH chilean sea bass…worth the effort!
well-cooked chilean sea bass = numero uno!!!
second to fried curried squid. =)
hey what’s this..haha..numero uno then second to sth else…i’m not thinking..it’s friday afternoon =p
I agree! Butterfish is a poor substitute for Chilean sea bass. I’ve never tried the frozen kind, although I know that Super88 also carries them too, let us know how they turn out!
I see that you have tuna near the bottom. I like getting sushi-grade tuna and just searing it on the outside. It’s nice and tender because it’s rare haha =). Of course, sushi-grade tuna at somewhere like Bread&Circus will cost you $15/lb
. I guess it’s out of consideration for Soul Food!
Mmmmmmm…where does one get that recipe?
Loren, you’re right — that table only applies to fully-cooked fish. I am not a sushi connoiseur, so I wouldn’t know how to rate the various fishes raw. Yep, some foods are out of the $1.50 Soul Food budget — these would include sushi, lobster, filet mignon…
JFS: It’s in the Blue Ginger cookbook (search on Amazon).
Darn, I was going to suggest filet mignon for Soul Food… And I definitely agree, cooked tuna is one of the most unpleasant tough things to eat… or rather, it always gives me pain when someone orders a tuna at an expensive restaurant like Legal’s and says “Well done”!
yuumm….miso sea bass sounds soo good. too bad they don’t make it anymore!