“Food can bring people together in a way nothing else can.” Yotam Ottolenghi

Hi there,

The other day Dom and I went shopping at Costco and mistakenly bought two pieces of sea bass. I have come to cooking fish very late in life. And to be honest, I usually need the fish disguised in lots of flavors. I found the idea for preparing this meal on line from an article that was published in the 1990’s. I tweaked it to make it easier and to use ingredients that I had on hand. We liked this dish so much that it is on the menu for friends we are having over Saturday night.

Ingredients:

• 2 nice sized sea bass filets
• 1/4 pound of shrimp
• 1 and 1/2 cups of chicken broth
• box of pearled couscous. I used the Near East mix pictured below
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 6 blood oranges
• 1 15 ounce can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 12 large green olives, Cerignola preferred
• 6 large dates

Directions for the couscous:

Bring the broth to a boil. Add the couscous and the seasoning packet and the chickpeas to the broth. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed.

Using a microplane grater, remove the zest of three blood oranges and set aside. Peel the remaining skin from the 3 oranges and cut segments into 1/4 inch pieces.

Quarter the olives and dates then add the quartered oranges, olives and dates to the couscous.

Directions for the sea bass:

Dry the sea bass filets thoroughly and season with salt and pepper.

Juice the remaining 3 blood oranges.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

Over medium heat warm a sauté pan with the olive oil and butter.

Add the sea bass to the pan and sauté for 5 minutes then and add the shrimp to the pan. Turn over the filet and sauté the sea bass and shrimp an additional 2 minutes.

Cook in the oven for 10 minutes.

Remove the fish from the pan and keep warm. Place the sauté pan back on the stove and add the orange juice and the orange zest to the to the pan drippings. Bring to a boil and reduce by half.

Pour the orange juice reduction over the sea bass and serve.

Special notes: clementines can be substituted for blood oranges and any type of thick white fish would work well with this recipe. A sprinkle of fresh mint over the top would look nice. (I didn’t have any that day.)

See you soon, ❤️💕Bernadette