Salt Baked Fish at Russian House: San Francisco

Date:  jeudi 8 octobre 2009
Location:  à la maison russe, San Francisco

After celebration drinks at COCO500 (where we sipped on delicious, sexy, quintessential San Francisco fresh organic cocktails), we decided to cook at home rather than eat out.  That's the thing about living in SF...  we become so accustomed to the constant plethora of quality restos and organic food sources that a lot of the time we prefer to eat in.  We enjoy being executive chefs in our own kitchen.  Moi, if I am lucky, I will find myself in a friend's beautiful kitchen as sous chef!  Most of my friends in SF are self-proclaimed foodies like myself.  We love being with our friends and conversing over our own food and wine in a relaxed atmosphere.  Engaging in thoughtful, intelligent, and cozy conversation.


Tonight was no exception.  We had the idea to make a "salt baked fish," having seen it on a cooking show few nights prior.  The idea is to bake the fish completely covered in salt... similar to baking a fish in the ground when camping.  The salt naturally seasons the fish as it is baking;  it is common to stuff the fish with lemon slices, rosemary or thyme, depending on the fish and the flavor one desires.  I learned tonight that this style of salt baking fish is quite common in the Mediterranean.  I guess I had either not paid attention to how my fishes meals were cooked while visiting Barcelona and Beirut.  Or, I just never had it prepared this way before.  In any case, I was a little eager beaver completely watching and taking notes as the executive chef effortlessly worked away.

The fish was stuffed with perfectly sliced meyer lemons, smothered in rock salt, then baked for under 20 minutes.  Then the fun part came, which was cracking the baked salt apart and scooping it off the fish.  The fish skin was gently removed, and the fish pieces placed beautifully on our serving plates. Left over tomato olive oil juice was drizzled on the tender fish pieces.  The fish tasted marvelous!!  Oh!  Do not forget to eat the fish cheeks!  This is a fine delicacy in Chinese culture, usually the fish cheeks are reserved for the oldest person at the table.  I taught my fine Russian friend that night the fine art and delicacy of eating fish cheeks.  Imagine, all the world's fish cheeks gone uneaten and unappreciated!  Tragedy!!! 



Alongside the salt baked fish, we had gorgeous giant red heirloom tomato, prepared simply with true authentic Italian extra virgin olive oil, and a dash of pepper and salt.  We enjoyed the meal so much that when we were done, we stood over the fish remains in the salt baking pan, and picked out left over fish pieces with our fingers and finished eating every possible last morsel that remained on the fish. 

Finally for dessert, we had french toast squares prepared with Italian nutella.  WOW!  What a beautiful celebratory meal.  And I love eating fish!  It was my favorite meat since I was 5 years old... my Mom said that as a kid, I was so adept at eating fish and going meandering around the fish bones.  Somehow, eating fish always reminds me happily of my childhood and my Mom's Chinese style steamed fishies.  ^^ 


I am lucky to be reintroduced to my favorite meat.  Yay.