Spotted Sandbass on a Bed of Vegetables As luck would have it, I happened to be in Mission Valley again on Friday during their farmer's market. I couldn't pass on the opportunity to snatch a fresh whole fish, so I went to say hello to my new friends at Poppa's Fresh Catch ("any fresher and you'd be underwater!", I love their slogan !). Their whole fish that day was the spotted sandbass, a beautiful fish with a huge mouth and lots of meat. I went home with a 3-pounder.
I had to get my biggest cooking dish for that monster ! I placed a bit of olive oil and about 1 oz of butter at the bottom, then layered a bed of onion slices (1 big onion) and precut mushrooms (1 pack). Then I proceeded to stuff the sandbass with a few sprigs of fresh thyme and some dried bay leaves, before placing it on the bed of vegetables. I surrounded the fish with two big tomatoes cut in eighth, added salt, pepper, pieces of lemons, spinkled about 1 oz of butter. Lastly I poured about 3/4 cup of white wine on top, and cooked in the oven at 400F for 45 minutes.
The vegetables cooked in the wine-butter mixture and were nicely complemented with steaming white rice. White wine/butter/white fish is a perfect trifecta, a master combo anyone can pull off with the right fish. The spotted sandbass turned out to have a firm texture that reminded me of, ironically, seabass. I never once set down my fork until everything was gone off my plate. What a great dinner ! Yum, yum :)
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