Red Snapper Veracruz (Huachinango
a la Veracruzana)
Here is a classic Mexican dish, a great favorite of ours, that I demonstrated
this week at the community center, along with the Smoked Salmon Ceviche.
Red Snapper Veracruz makes a good buffet fish in that it will hold awhile,
warm and moist. For a more elegant dinner table presentation, bake
the fish whole and then separate and serve it at the table. Taste
the sauce as you go. If prepared too hot it will drive out the great
taste of the red snapper—a common fault in preparing boldly seasoned dishes.
Included is this recipe is another for Tomato Concassé, which
is French for a coarsely chopped tomato mixture that is prepared and then
used for the tomato based dishes of the day. A concassé (kawn-ka-SAY)
is a roughly chopped product not ready for the table. It's a base-tomato,-tomatillos,
-potato, or whatever. The idea here is that, during the height of
the tomato season, buy tomatoes in quantity, make a big patch of concassé
and freeze it in 1-2 quart containers. Then …, you are ready to make
this dish by adding the Mexican seasoning, make your favorite Italian tomato
sauce for a pasta, or make tomato soup to be pureed and maybe strained.
Much of the hard and time consuming work is already done since you have
the concassé in the freezer.
RED SNAPPER VERACRUZ
Yield: serves 4
See Abbreviations, if needed
· 1.5-2 lbs
red snapper filets
· 2
limes, juiced
· 3 C
tomato concassé w/ a few tomatoes pieces added, or
3 C of very good canned tomatoes
· 1 oz
EVOO
· ½
medium onion, thinly sliced
· 1
garlic cloves, pureed
· BG
(bay and thyme leaves, pepper corns + oregano, + cilantro)
· ¼ t
cayenne (optional)
· 2
pickled jalapeno chili peppers (seeds & veins removed) diced
· ½ C
sliced green olives
· 1 oz
capers, drained and rinsed
·
S/P
1. Cut fish into 5-7 oz pieces, prick, salt & marinade w/
limejuice
2. Sweat onions & garlic in oil, add cayenne
3. Add the concassé, BG, jalapeno, half the olives and
capers, S/P
4. BTB and simmer for about 30 minutes.
5. Add stock or water to thin, return to boil briefly, adjust
seasoning
6. Place fish in large gratinée
7. Top fish w/ chunky tomato parts, olives and capers, &
pour sauce over
8. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes, uncovered
9. Remove from the oven and spoon off any excess thin liquid,
leaving the rich
tomato sauce
10. Serve over rice with blanched fresh asparagus
Tomato Concassé
(Tomato Sauce Base)
See Abbreviations, if needed
· EVOO
· 1 part onion, diced
· 4-5
parts tomato, coarsely chopped
· garlic pureed
· BG
A sachet of bay leaf, thyme, parsley stems and pepper corns
· S/P
1. Sweat diced onions in a generous amount of EVOO
2. Add garlic, BG and S/P
3. Add blanched, peeled and roughly cut tomatoes
4. Simmer for about 45 minutes
5. (Optional) Reduce chunkiness of the concassé
with a stick blender
6. Cool and freeze
Note: Tomatoes should be blanched and peeled before being
chopped. Removing the seeds is optional and dependent on what you’re
likely to make with the concassé.
|
