Roasting branzino

Well, before I get into the branzino, I wanted to tell you about this prosciutto. The team over at Pine Street Market has been aging it for ... however long you have to age a prosciutto. It actually debuted last weekend, but we were travelling, so we missed out. Since we were at home today, we went to the store to try it out and brought some home.

For the most part, I like it. But parts of it are a little too salty and as you get deeper in, it starts to taste more like ham. I think it will get better with their next batch.

On to the branzino. I haven't cooked in some time, as you know. I'm okay with the cooking, I guess, but not at all on the shopping. But since we were home, we stopped by Dekalb Farmers Market to pick up supplies for the next few days. When you're at the point where you're out of onions and potatoes and almost out of garlic, you know things are bad. We bought some shelled field peas -- because shelling field peas makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon. We also bought some fava beans, which are a real bitch, but I somehow don't consider to be as bad. We also bought some little yukon golds, onions, and parsley. We headed over to the fish section just to check out what they had and I was pleasantly surprised to see several branzino hanging out on ice.

They all looked pretty fresh, so I opted for one without any red that was actually touching the metal pan and thus pretty close to being on ice. I brought it home and cleaned it. And if I do say so myself, I cleaned it better than they have been coming out at 246. Anyway. When I took him out to cook, I covered him with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and filled him with some onion, fresh thyme, and lemon slices, just like I'm used to having. He went into the oven for twenty minutes at 400.

While that was doing its thing, I made the salsa verde with the Traci Des Jardins recipe from Alice Waters' compilation In the Green Kitchen. Anchovies, capers, garlic, parsley, shallot, olive oil, s+p. It didn't seem salty enough so I added another anchovy. That was a mistake. Now I just keep drinking water. And the bite of the garlic was a bit strong I thought. And it was such a small garlic clove!

But on the whole, it was all a big success. The fish was cooked perfectly. The head was delicious. I didn't swallow one fish bone and I got to use chopsticks. I also served some parboiled them roasted little potatoes and a field pea salad with one of the most tasteless sad tomatoes ever. I think they need some time on the windowsill. Yum. And I'm full. And I need to get some more water.