Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar
This lovely cookbook inspired me to try some new dishes, including this fish. Its bright flavors will spice up your dinner menu. And the writing is charming. There are directions in this recipe to cook the fennel when the water begins to gallop. See? Charming. Next on my list: Honey Roasted Chicken, Polpette alla Ricotta, and Aunt Effie’s Oat Bars.
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Recipe excerpted with permission from A Table Full of Love by Skye McAlpine (Bloomsbury)
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Roasted Dorade with Fennel and Tomatoes
This is a delightfully simple dish to prepare: the lion’s share of the effort lies in sourcing good, fresh dorade and asking your fishmonger to clean and gut it for you. For the rest, it’s largely a matter of assembling the ingredients in a roasting pan and putting it in the oven. If you wanted, for ease, you could prepare the dish largely in advance with the tomatoes and lightly blanched sweet fennel, then let everything sit in the pan in the fridge until you’re ready to roast it (if you do, you may want to increase the cooking time by just a smidgen, or bring the fish to room temperature before cooking it).
HANDS ON TIME:
10 minutes
HANDS OFF TIME:
20–25 minutes in the oven
SERVES 2
1 small fennel bulb, with lots of its fennel herb fronds, if possible
2 small whole dorade, gutted and cleaned small bunch of thyme
5 tbsp olive oil
1 1/3 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 tbsp capers
flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat the oven to 350°F.
Bring a small saucepan of generously salted water to a boil. Chop the fennel into quarters. When the water begins to gallop, throw the fennel in and cook for 3 minutes, then drain and slice the fennel.
Meanwhile, wash the fish under cold running water to get rid of any excess blood, then pat dry with paper towels. Stuff each dorade with some thyme, saving a little to scatter in the pan later.
Drizzle 2–3 tbsp olive oil over a roasting pan and put the fish on it, side by side. Scatter the tomatoes, capers and sliced fennel around the fish, with all the fennel herb that came with it. Toss in a couple of thyme sprigs, drizzle over the last of the olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper.
Roast in the oven for 20–25 minutes, until the fish flesh is opaque.
Tracey Zabar's Chocolate Chip Sweets: Celebrated Chefs Share Favorite Recipes is available here.
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Tracey Zabar's One Sweet Cookie Cookbook is available here.
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Lori Zabar's Zabar's A Family Story, With Recipes is available here.
