Saffron Squash Risotto and Seared Sea Bass
A dinner I cooked for a private chef client in San Francisco
Before cooking privately for a family, you go through a trial to test the waters. This is the time to showcase your skills, cook great food and prove you cook good food. I try to cook things that will turn out well in the amounted time I have, because time management is everything as a chef. For one of my current clients, I made this risotto and sea bass for my trial. It’s a basic risotto, with a splash of sake instead of white wine and the addition of roasted squash. The saffron blooms in the dish, adding color and aromatics and goes so well with the sweet squash. It’s also an easy thing to make dairy free, with the substitution of parmesan for nutritional yeast. The chilean sea bass is the star of the show with silky layers and acidic flavor. I create a crispy sear from the high heat and add a lemon caper sauce. The strong acid notes pair so well with the creamy risotto, a texture explosion for your tastebuds.
Saffron Squash Risotto
Serves 4 adults
Ingredients=
200g risotto rice (I like carnaroli)
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups roasted small dice squash, butternut, honeynut or koginut
3 tbsp sake or white wine
1/2 cup small dice yellow onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 bundle saffron threads
1 cup grated parmesan or nutritional yeast
4 tbsp cold salted butter
Salt and pepper
Method=
Beforehand= Peel and cut up squash into small diced cubes. Roast in 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Heat a saute pan with clarified butter or oil. Once it appears to have waves in the fat, you know its hot enough to add the onions.
Heat a high-edge saucier pan on medium heat. Add some clarified butter or olive oil. Once its swirly, you know the fat is hot. Add the onions and minced garlic. Add a pinch of salt to start building flavor. Once translucent, add the risotto rice. Coat the rice with the oil.
In another pot on the stove, heat up your chicken or vegetable stock. You want it simmering and warm. Add our saffron threads into the stock, this will add a light aromatic to the risotto.
Lower your heat to medium-low. Add your sake or white wine into the rice. Next start ladling 1 ladle full of stock into the rice. One ladle at a time, we wait until the stock cooks off before adding more. Keep mixing every 5ish minutes and adding more stock so that it doesn’t try out. We want to slowly cook the risotto.
Keep cooking on low, adding stock as you go. Once about 20 minutes have passed, taste the risotto. It should be creamy, thick and not crunchy. Add water if you run out of stock and need to cook it longer. You literally cannot overcook this!
Taste for seasoning and add the Parmesan or nutritional yeast. Fold in the cold butter and roasted squash pieces. Taste and adjust. Hold warm until the fish is done.
Seared Sea Bass with Lemon Caper Sauce
Serves 4 adults
Ingredients=
4 Sea Bass filets
1 tbsp Lemon zest
1 tbsp Lemon juice
1 jar of Capers
5 tbsp Cold salted butter
2 tbsp Clarified butter or Neutral oil, avocado oil or rice bran or grapeseed, needs to be able to take high heat! Wouldn’t recommend using olive oil
Salt and pepper
Method=
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Salt the sea bass heavily, let sit for 15 minutes.
Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat, add neutral oil (options above, not olive oil!) Carefully put your fish filet into the pan, flesh side down! You want to sear the belly, the pretty side first! Skin we will sear second.
Sear until golden and shake the pan to keep it from sticking.
Once both sides have been seared, put them onto a tray with a rack. Finish cooking them in the oven until internally read 145 on thermometer.
While they finish cooking, deglaze your pan with caper juice. Heat should be at medium heat. Scrap it down to get the pieces from searing the fish, thats flavor!! Add capers to it. Add lemon zest and salt and pepper.
Next lower the heat to low. Add tbsp of cold butter, 1 tbsp at a time, moving the pan in circles as you go to emsulify it. Once all the butter is in and melted, cut the heat. Taste and adjust salt and lemon juice.
Serve poured over the sea bass.
This is one of my favorite things to cook, let me know what you think! Excited to share more recipes here.