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Yesterday morning, an email from Food & Wine magazine touted Sea Bass Saltimbocca. It borrowed the basic flavors and methodology of a veal saltimbocca for a lovely piece of fresh fish. Their method: put sage leaf on fish, wrap with prosciutto, dredge in flour, brown/cook in a pan with butter, remove fish, splash in white wine, cook briefly, pour over fish, serve. Voila.
The picture alone sold it. No question: we were having that for dinner. Of course, prosciutto wrapped fish is not new. I've seen salmon and halibut prepared that way (usually as an accompaniment for asparagus), but adding the sage and considering it a saltimbocca was dimensionally beyond what I'd previously considered and I loved the idea. (I adore sage.) It was a good day to go there, too, as I was was going to try it on salmon as I was buying two whole ones to smoke anyway and could easily reserve a chunk for this, but before I could carry that out I saw a piece of fresh swordfish at the store, and that being a favorite and so rare in these parts I changed fish.
But once I got ready to cook dinner, a few issues presented themselves. Since swordfish grills so beautifully I was already thinking I would grill it first, and too this was a particularly thick piece of fish, almost 2", triangular in shape and once I cut it in half, though one piece would be a nice rectangle the other would be triangular and unsuited shapewise to wrapping.
So I took a different approach. In a tiny saucepan 2 tblsp of butter were melted and allowed to brown just slightly with six fresh sage leaves. When the leaves were close to crisp, I removed them and added a dollop of white wine to the butter. Separately, I broiled four slices of prosciutto which I let cool (they crisp up as they cool) then crumbled most of, reserving two large flakes for the very top. In a Le Creuset pan reserved exclusively for fish grilling went the swordfish for some grill marks, then it got moved to the oven to finish (for swordfish, I like an internal temperature of 135F). All the pieces came together for the final plating with shallot-sautéed purple carrots.
We loved the result. An old world idea transformed to something new and modern on the plate. Old style or new, the sage+ prosciutto of a classic saltimbocca is a delicious, easy way to dress up a piece of fish. Highly recommended!
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