I arrived to the studio safely and continued with the business at hand waiting for my lunch break to see what goodies the market had in store for me. As I mentioned before, I work a block away from Chelsea Market. They have an impressive assortment of food vendors that range from a coffee shop, a meat market, a fish market, and a few bakeries as well as the Food Channel studios! As lunch time approached I reviewed Mario's book, that was packed away in my satchel, bundled up and headed out the door. My destination was The Lobster Place. I quickly spotted my prey as they tried to conceal themselves behind mounds of crushed ice, the red snapper! I quickly flipped through the pages of my book back to the index and found a recipe. Cernia alle Olive - Snapper with Olives (page 289).
The staff was friendly and helpful as usual, they quickly cleaned the snapper and provided me with a small bag of ice for the trip home (not that I would of needed it today).
The only other thing left was a simple and easy side dish or an appetizer. Enter the Caponata di Melanzane - Eggplant Caponata (page 426). With the recipe set, I headed back to work to finish out the day and get home to purchase the last of the indigents at the local grocer.
Both dishes were very simple. Mojo and I have a good system and can make quick work of preparing the ingredients. We dredged the snapper in flour and fried it on both sides to brown, then placed it in the oven for an additional 15 minutes, while also cooking the caponata. One of the main ingredients for the snapper was gaeta olives, which have to be pitted and chopped coarsely. I won't mention any names...but my sous chef, who did a great job of pitting the olives forgot to chop them. We didn't realize this until we threw them into the frying pan. We quickly removed them and tried to chop them but it was a little too late and as you will see in the photos, most of them went in whole.
It was only the kids and me tonight and I knew Mariesa would not be too happy with the menu. She decided on left overs which left us the entire fish to devour. The recipe calls for 3 - 4 lbs, but knowing that our guest list would be small tonight, I only purchased a 2 lb snapper. The snapper was delicious! It was so fresh and had a very light texture to it. Being that Mojo is a young boy, it felt more like a biology class and the fish was his specimen. We quickly opened up the head and the meat just flaked off the bones. I could see Mariesa turning different shades of green... and what kind of dad would I be if I didn't pounce on this opportunity.
"How about the eyes son?"
"Heck ya dad!"
Poor Mariesa almost lost it as she screamed
"Daddy! Don't do it!"
Mojo and I devilishly looked at each other and popped the eye balls into our mouths! Mariesa jumped up and ran to her bedroom screaming
"You guys are disgusting!"
Oh what fun! Mariesa did try the caponata and we all agreed it was a sweet and spicy treat. We wish you were here!
Ciao,
Mario & Mario
