And More Fish

Fish is really the protein I forget to eat. It's not that I don't enjoy it--it's just that when I think of meat, I think of the rich hearty texture of beef, the tasty fat from pork, and let's face it, the ease of cooking chicken. Time to change my ways. I've had the Chopped Lemon Bagna Cauda recipe from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook in the back of my mind for a long time, so I tried their suggestion of serving it with fish.

In the bagna cauda, I substituted anchovy paste for anchovy fillets. For the main, I grilled a fillet of snapper in a pan with olive oil, salt, pepper and fennel seeds. I also toasted some crostini as per the book's direction, and topped it with roasted tomatos, garlic and onion. Spoonfuls of the bagna cauda all over everything. Success! The bright lemoniness went well with the licorice taste of fennel, and the tomatos were sweet like the fish. I still had some of the sauce left over after the meal, which prompted me to quickly blanch some spindly asparagus, which I then used to eat up the rest of the bagna cauda.