My Julia Child Moment with Whole Grilled Bass

When I first started this blog, I naively thought that I would post both my successes and failures…it is real life, after all, and there are bound to be plenty of experiments gone awry. What I quickly realized though is that it is WAY too much work to take and edit photos, write up a recipe and think of something (hopefully) entertaining to say about a dish when I’m not even happy with the end result.

Trust me when I say there have been plenty of dishes gone wrong. Most recently it was a bland turnip soup with weird unidentified woody pieces that didn’t puree and had to be fished out of our mouths. There was a fava bean puree that tasted like it looked (which was not good) and oddly chewy shrimp puffs that either needed more egg or less egg. Baking disasters are even more common; the worst being a miserable version of an upside-down apple dessert labeled in my notebook as “Awful Cake.” That one went directly into the garbage. I could go on. But I don’t want daily reminders of these things and I certainly don’t need them enshrined on my blog.

That brings me to this dish: a whole striped bass, stuffed with aromatics, bursting with flavor, grilled and ensconced in its crispy skin. Well, that’s what was supposed to happen. I’ve made this dish several times before and it worked perfectly each time. But this time I wanted to take photos and you know the saying about the best-laid plans…

Normally I wouldn’t post something that I don't deem cosmetically perfect. However, I’m making an exception because this fish was so tender, so juicy and so flavorful. The problem, as you can see, is that when I flipped it over on the grill, all the skin pulled off. The grill was oiled, the fish was oiled…it’s the same technique I’ve always used. Sigh. As I started to throw my temper tantrum on the patio for all the neighbors to hear, I thought about one of my favorite episodes of The French Chef.

Julia Child was making apple tarte tatin in this particular episode, but the apples didn’t caramelize the way they were supposed to and the whole thing was way too loose. She knew it wasn’t going to work, but carried on anyway saying, “If everything doesn’t happen quite the way you like, it doesn’t make too much difference because you can fix it” with emphasis on the YOU CAN. She was chuckling to herself as she moved forward, and as she turned the tarte tatin onto a plate in a messy heap proclaimed, “That unmolded VERY badly, but…it’s not going to make too much difference because it’s all going to fix up…” She was absolutely unperturbed by it all and it made me love her even more.

Somehow I channeled a little bit of that energy when all the skin disappeared between the grates of the barbecue, much to Andy’s surprise. He was preparing for an all-out fit. Truthfully, I surprised myself a bit too, but I picked a little piece of fish off the barbecue and knew that it was still going to be perfect. So what if it didn’t look just right. Julia Child flubbed a dish on TELEVISION, for goodness sake, and she didn’t seem to care one bit! In fact, she was laughing. What did it matter that I had skinless fish?

Whole Grilled Striped Bass with Lemon, Garlic and Thai Chili Peppers

Serves 2

1 whole striped bass, cleaned and dressed, about 1 pound 

3-4 slices lemon
4 cloves garlic, crushed
6 Thai chili peppers, crushed
6-8 sprigs of thyme
salt
pepper
olive oil

Remove fins from fish. Liberally oil, salt and pepper the entire fish, including inside the cavity. Stuff the cavity with lemon slices, garlic cloves, chili peppers and thyme sprigs. Close the cavity by threading a skewer (or toothpicks) though the skin.

Prepare a grill to medium heat (about 375 degrees). Grill fish over indirect heat for 10-11 minutes per side, flipping once very carefully.

(Alternatively, I’m sure you could roast this in the oven and probably have a better chance of not losing all the skin.)

So there it is, in all its glory. I know it’s not the most beautiful dish I’ve ever made, but I will stand by its greatness. The fish is so tender it’s almost buttery, with hints of lemon, garlic, thyme and the slightest pinch of spice that lingers on your tongue. We devoured it, pretty or not.

At the end of the day, Julia Child said it best: “This looks perfectly alright.”

(Watch the apple tarte tatin mishap here at about 17:30.)