Sea bass fillet in Barolo with artichokes

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 2 fish(s) (sea bass) 500 – 600 g each
• 2 tbsp olive oil, for frying
• salt and pepper
• 2 pinches of flour
• 1 shallot(s), diced
• ¼ garlic clove(s), diced
• 200 ml red wine (Barolo or other high-quality red wine)
• 200 ml fish stock, made from the bones and heads of the two fish with 200 ml water, or buy it ready
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tbsp cream
• 50 g butter, cold, cut into cubes
• salt and pepper
• 8 artichoke(s), Italian, purple, fresh with stem

Instructions

Working time approx. 20 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 45 minutes; Total time approx. 1 hour 5 minutes

Barolo Branzino or Spigola

Wash the fish and remove scales with the blunt side of a chef’s knife. Then fillet the fish and remove all the bones from the upper part of the fillets, or have your fishmonger do this for you. Wash the middle bones and heads thoroughly and let them simmer in 200 ml of almost simmering water, just covered, for 30 minutes with a bay leaf, then strain. Reduce the shallot, garlic, the other bay leaf, the red wine, and fish stock to just under 100 ml, strain, stir in the cream, and thicken with the cold butter until no longer boiling. Season with salt and pepper, set aside, and keep warm. Season the flesh side of the 4 fillets with salt and pepper, dust lightly with flour on the skin side, and fry in 2 non-stick pans in olive oil over medium heat until 2/3 of the fillets have turned white. This takes about 2-3 minutes. At the beginning of frying, press the fillets down with a spatula, otherwise they will curl. Then remove the pans from the heat, turn the fillets over and finish cooking in the residual heat of the pans for just under a minute. Arrange skin-side up on the Barolo sauce. In spring, be sure to serve fresh, steamed Italian purple artichokes as a side dish. There is a recipe for this in the database under my name. In autumn and winter I would use spinach as a side dish. There is also a recipe for this under my name. In Italy, sea bass is called branzino or spigola (mirror sea bream, because of its silvery skin). You can also use dentice (denticulate sea bream). In the South of France it is loup der mer.