Whole Roasted Fish (Branzino), Simple Asparagus, and Walnut Tart | Julia at Home

This episode of Julia at Home is a Mediterranean-inspired feast. We stuff and roast a whole branzino, show you how to cook asparagus on your oven’s broiler setting, and much more!

Whole Roasted Branzino Recipe: https://cooks.io/3YRE7qW
Mediterranean Rice Salad Recipe: https://cooks.io/4jbQPYT
Slow-Cooked Tomato Recipe with Olive Oil (in a Slow Cooker): https://cooks.io/45lw6yv
Simple Broiled Asparagus Recipe: https://cooks.io/3GWuBwK
Rustic Walnut Tart Recipe: https://cooks.io/3FiKywy

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[Music] Today I’m cooking dinner inspired by the Mediterranean featuring whole roasted bronzino and it is gorgeous. Going to serve that with some slow roasted tomatoes with just a little bit of garlic and olive oil. And I’m going to use a slow cooker, some quickly broiled asparagus and a Mediterranean style rice salad with dates and almonds. That is Ian’s absolute favorite. And to top it off, I’m going to have a rustic walnut tart. And I’m going to show you how to make a basic patrae or a sweet tart dough because once you learn how to make that, the world’s your oyster in terms of sweet tarts. So, we’re going to slow down and I’m going to show you step by step. To get started with the tomatoes, I have six gorgeous tomatoes here. So, I washed these already. Now, I’m simply removing the cores using a pairing knife. Not the entire core, just the little core shape that includes this stem and the little hard nubb in underneath it. Now, we’re going to cut these in half. Pretty simple in terms of prep. And we’re going to cook the tomato halves and they’ll shrink down and reduce. The skin will get a little shriveled and the flesh will intensify in its flavor. It is a great way to prep tomatoes. So, into a slow cooker insert, I’m just going to put the tomatoes. I like putting them skin side down. That way, they hold their shape a bit better. Then, they sit nicely on a serving platter. Half a cup of olive oil. Just your extra virgin cooking olive oil. You don’t need the fancy salad olive oil. This is the cooking olive oil. Next up, a little salt and pepper. So that’s 1/4 teaspoon pepper and 3/4 of a teaspoon table salt. Just going to roll the tomatoes around in the olive oil and that seasoning. Make sure everything’s nicely coated. Something just about tomatoes and olive oil. It’s the perfect combination. All right, last up, we’re going to add some thyme. Now, the recipe actually has you mince thyme and put it in. I’ve done away with that. I just love throwing the whole sprigs in there. The thyme leaves fall right out as they cook, and it’s just easier. And I washed those already. Last but not least, we’re going to add some garlic. Six cloves of garlic. The only thing I’m going to do to this garlic is I’m going to smash them to help release some of the flavor. And just smash garlic cloves. You put it flat on the counter. Use a flat side of a knife and just bang it. Get them down into that oil. That garlic is also part of the treat when you’re serving these cuz slow roasted alongside the tomatoes. Into the slow cooker. These go 3 to four hours on high or if you want to stretch it out a little longer because that works better for your timeline, 5 to 6 hours on low. And you know they’re done when they’re softened and the skins have just begun to [Music] wrinkle. All right, now let’s start making the rice for the rice salad. And how you cook the rice for the salad makes all the difference. You can’t just make a peel off and spread it out and expect it to taste good because if you think about it, room temperature peel off always has a little bit of a hard crunch to it. That’s not tasty. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to toast the rice, give it a little flavor that way, and then boil it like pasta. So, cup of rice into a skillet. We’re going to toast it over medium heat till the grains start to turn a little bit of color. A few of them get a little golden. Takes about 8 minutes or so. Once the rice is toasted and it’s very fragrant, we’re going to add it to salted boiling water and cook it until it’s nice and tender. Takes about eight or nine minutes. Then we’re going to strain it and spread it out on a rimmed baking sheet and let it cool. This rice is nicely cooled. Time to make salad. So, I’m just going to scrape it right into a serving bowl. And this rice has a very different texture than peel off because we boiled it like pasta. And so, it’ll have a nice tender texture at room temperature. Now, when you chill it, and you can make this salad ahead of time, it will get a little stiff, so you want to make sure that you bring it back to room temperature before you serve it. To the salad, we’re going to add a whole bunch of fresh ingredients. Starting with some scallions. Just going to trim the edges here. Trim the ends. And as I usually do with scallions, I like cutting the white and light green parts in half just cuz they have a stronger flavor. If you get a big piece of that in your mouth, it’s very scalliony. So, cutting them into smaller pieces, less likely to happen. I’m just going to slice them nice and thinly. Right onto the rice it goes. Next up, some fresh parsley. About a/4 cup of fresh parsley, nicely chopped. Obviously, I washed this already. Just going to take any of the thick stems out here. You just want the leaves. It’s always a judgment call. How much will make quarter of a cup when it’s chopped? I think it usually reduces its volume by about half. So, start off with about half a cup of leaves. It’s about 1/4 cup chopped. It’s looking a little more like a third of a cup than a 1/4 of a cup, but I think for a rice cell, that’ll be just fine. Into the bowl it goes. Bringing it up top. Adding the last few ingredients here. This is why Ian loves it. He loves dates. These are meel dates. 3/4 of a cup that have been nicely chopped. And I found out, don’t buy the pre- chopped dates. They’re all dried up. They have a white filmy color. Better off to chop them up yourselves. They’re nice and moist. Just want to break up any clumps. Make sure you don’t get too much date in your mouth at one time. You really want to work it into the rice. And some almonds. Toasted sliced almonds. Again, about 3/4 of a cup. I’m going to set this aside while we make the dressing. Very simple dressing. Here we have 1/4 cup of olive oil. To this, we’re going to add little bit of lemon juice, fresh from a lemon. about two and a half tablespoons or so. That looks pretty good. And we’re going to add some orange zest and orange juice. And that orange flavor will be repeated with the bronzino, so it really ties the meal together. About a teaspoon of fresh orange zest. I washed I scrubbed this orange beforehand. And about 2 tablespoons of juice, which is about half an orange. One, two. Perfect. And last but not least, a little bit of cinnamon. 1/4 of a teaspoon. The cinnamon really just brings the almonds and the dates all together. Almost adds a sweet quality without adding any sugar. There’s plenty of sugar in those dates. All right. Going to whisk this all together. Perfect. This dressing all over. It’s not a lot of dressing. It’s just enough to give the rice some flavor. And then toss it all together. Ian’s going to be so happy I made this. Whenever I make this and there’s any leftovers, he if he doesn’t eat it for breakfast the next day, it’s gone by lunchtime. This is one of his favorite side dishes. All right, that’s pretty good. I’m going set this aside, clean up, and then we can get started on the bronzino. Love what you’re watching? Today, the rice is done. The tomatoes are cooking away. Time to finish up with the asparagus and then we can focus on the bronzino. So, the asparagus we’re going to broil at the last minute just with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. My favorite way to cook asparagus. To trim asparagus, what I like to do is line them up. Snap one. That kind of gives you the most tender part on this side. And this is the tough woody stems. And I just use that as a guide. Uh, there we go. into compost this goes. And that is it for prepping the asparagus. I washed it already. All right. Now, let’s talk about the bronzino. We’re going to make a flavorful salt to rub on the inside and the outside of the fish while it roast. Just add some nice flavor. We’re going to use lemon zest and orange zest. We’re about two teaspoons of each, which is about one orange. Next up, the lemon zest. All right, that’s good for the lemon zest and orange zest. Now, we’re going to add some salt and pepper. So, we’re going to add a teaspoon and a half of table salt and half a teaspoon of ground black pepper. We’re just going to mix this up into a paste. I know I’m using the back side of a spoon. Yes, that is weird, but I kind of do that when I cook. I just grab whatever’s nearby that looks like it’ll work. And I wanted something this size that would mix things up, but it wouldn’t stick to. That happened to be the backside of a spoon. Ah, perfect. All right. So, we’ll set this aside till we’re ready to bring the fish out of the fridge. Now, for the sauce, again, we’re going to repeat some of these flavors. Here, I have some olive oil. We’re going to add about 2 and 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice. One, two, and a half. 2 tbsps of orange juice. One, two. There we go. Now, we’re going to add a minced shallot. Going to add some fresh parsley. Here I have a little clump of freshly washed parsley. You want about a quarter of a cup. Sound familiar? Lot of parsley and lemon and orange juice in this meal, which are the flavors I really love. There we go. I’m going to save the stems because we’re actually going to put the stems inside the fish as they roast for extra flavor. So, I’m going to set these aside. Give this a nice chop. All right. Into the sauce it goes. Few pepper flakes. Right. A little salt and pepper just to taste. There you go. That’s as simple as it gets for the sauce. And now time to bring out the star ingredient, the bronzino, which I’ve been keeping chilled in the fridge this whole time cuz it’s a fresh fish and you want to keep that way. Oh, these guys are gorgeous. Look at them. They’re about 1 and 12 lbs each. You can see they’re good fish cuz the eyes are nice and clear. They’ve been scaled, they’ve been gutted, and they’ve been rinsed. And they’re ready for the oven. All right, let’s get these guys seasoned up. Now, the one piece of trimming that I like to do before I roast them is cut these fins off because they have a tendency to burn. So, sharp pair of scissors, the fins on top as well. Careful, these ones, they’ll poke you. And this guy, let’s not forget this fin on this side. All right. Now, I rinsed them off when I got them home from the fish market. And I’m just going to give them a nice pat dry because we’re going to spread some of that salt into the cavities and onto the flesh. So, we get rid of this paper toweling, put them right on the baking sheet so we can prep them a bit more easily. And to help this flavored salt really work its way into the flesh of the fish, we’re going to cut a few slits along each side about three or four. Right from the top of the back of the spine down to the belly, not all the way, but most of the way. Right down into the flesh. Just really gives you a bit more surface area to get the flavoring into the fish. Right. And you want to do this on both sides. This is good to do no matter if you’re roasting it or you’re grilling it. And these fish are easy just to throw on the grill because they’re a whole fish. With the skin on the outside, they have less of a tendency to stick. All right. Now, I’m getting fishy, so I have everything already prepped. Here’s the salt rub we made with the lemon and orange zest. I’m going to rub a little bit, about a teaspoon or so, on the inside of the cavity. This really just helps perfume the fish as it roasts. Also going to stuff the cavities with a few orange slices and those parsley sprigs left over from making the sauce. Again, just adds a little moisture to the roasting process and just perfumes the fish as it cooks. Few parsley sprigs in each because you have them. Why not? Now, we’re going to brush the outside with oil. I measured out the oil already. It’s about 2 tablespoons of olive oil because I knew my hands were going to be good and fishy. So, both sides. And now we’re going to take the rest of this spice paste and really rub it evenly all over the outside of the fish down to the cuts we made. I’m getting excited for this meal already. It feels really celebratory when you have a nice whole fish like this. Almost like a special occasion. All right, we’re going to let this fish hang out for 10 minutes. Let the salt and the zest work their way into the flesh. Going to get cleaned up and we can roast it. Time to get this fish in the oven. Now, I slid a piece of parchment paper under the fish. That just makes clean up easy. Goes into a ripping hot oven, 500° until the fish is cooked through, which only takes 15 to 20 minutes. Once the fish is done, it’ll register about 140 degrees. We’re going to pull it out and let it rest for five minutes. And in the meantime, we’re going to adjust the oven rack to be really close to the broiler, about 4 in there, for the asparagus. Before throwing the asparagus under the broiler, toss it with a little olive oil, a little salt and pepper, and depending on how thick the spears of asparagus are, could take anywhere from 8 to 10 minutes. Oh, look at that asparagus. It is gorgeous, that char on the outside. And I love it when the tips get charred like that. Oh, it is my favorite way to eat asparagus. Let it cool off just a little bit because it is piping hot. All right, next up, the tomatoes. They’ve been cooking this whole time. Hands off. Time to get them out of the slow cooker. Oh, it smells like ratatouille. Ratatouille was just tomatoes. And these taste glorious alongside the fish and the asparagus. But leftovers, I just eat them straight on toast with eggs, on sandwiches, you name it. And they’re very soft. So, I’m using a slotted spoon. It’s such a handsoff dish and it is so fun to serve for company cuz everyone’s just goes crazy for the flavor of them and it’s so easy. All right, time to make a tasting plate. Oh, before we make a tasting plate, let’s have some wine. So, this is an Italian white wine. It’s a vermentino, which is a grape varietal found throughout Italy. Also found in Lagora, which is famous for the bronzino fish. This one was grown in Tuscanyany, but it has a really lovely flavor profile that’s perfect with fish. It’s not as heavy as a Chardonnay, but it has that butteriness and it’s not as tart or acidic as say a Svenon Blanc, but it has that lightness to it. So, it’s the perfect compliment. Now, for the fish, I know it’s a cool way to present fish. It’s certainly an easy way to cook it, but this means you got to filt, which isn’t hard at all. So, the one thing you want to do, it’s about one side of fish per person. And what you want to do is you want to slice from the top to the bottom or the bottom to the top. We’re going to make fillets. I like to go about halfway through. You can use one of the slits you already made. Then using a pairing knife, you’re going to cut along the back side. All right. So, you want to use two spatulas. It’s sort of a catch a catch and release scenario. So, one spatula, you’re going to go right where you cut it and just gently run your spatula alongside the bones and just flip it away. from the backbone. Now, at this point, you’ve exposed this area, and you can go through and see if you have any pin bones. Oh, there’s one. Pin bones are inevitable on the plate, so a few is okay. But this is a nice way just to avoid some of the bigger ones that you don’t want your guests eating. All right, put this on the platter. Now, for the tail side of the fish, make sure it’s cut all the way through the belly on this side. all the way to the tail. Again, two spatula method. Flip the fillet over and onto the plate. Let’s not forget the sauce. The sauce really does tie this whole platter together cuz again, it has some of that orange, it has some of the lemon, the olive oil, the parsley. I like to put a little sauce on the tomato just cuz I can. This is my kind of meal. I’m going right for the fish. I love eating the skin. I just love the flavor of bronzino. Has sort of that sea bassy flavor, but it’s tender, it’s flaky, and with the zest salt that we put on the fish and that vinegarette, it is awesome. I know what my husband Ian would go for. He’d go for that rice salad in a heartbeat. It is such a good combination. Sweetness of the dates, the toastiness of the almonds, the spear of asparagus. M. Perfectly cooked, nicely charred. Last but not least, a little tomato. Getting some of the tomato with the fish. That’s also a good bite. M. This is pretty much a special occasion meal for me. A fresh whole fish right from the water roasted with just a few ingredients. That rice salad, the tomatoes, and a little vermentino. This is a good dinner. To follow up this wonderful Mediterranean inspired meal, we’re going to make a simple walnut tart and serve it with some bourbon whipped cream. At Cooks Illustrated, we’re food I want to break down exactly how to make a sweet tart dough or a pat sucra because once you have that in your arsenal, there are endless desserts at your fingertips that you can whip up in a snap. Mix one large egg with a teaspoon of vanilla extract together. Now, in the food processor bowl, we’re going to mix 1 and 1/2 cups of allpurpose flour, 2/3 of a cup of confectioner sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Just pulse it together till it’s nicely mixed. Then we have eight tablespoons of unsalted butter. Now, this has been cut into quartin pieces and chilled. So, we’re going to sprinkle this over the top. All right. And then you’re going to put the lid on and let it rip for about 20 seconds until the mixture really has a nice even consistency to it. Almost looks like cornmeal. And then with the processor running, going to add that egg vanilla mixture through the feed tube and let it keep going until a dough comes together around the blade. Now, the cool thing about this dough is you get to roll it out while it’s still easy to work with, right from the food processor. So, between two pieces of parchment paper, you want to roll it pretty much to the edges of the parchment, as thin as you can. And then we’re going to throw it in the freezer for 30 minutes before fitting it into the tart pan. Here is the tart dough, nice and chilled, really easy now to work with, and fit it into our tart pan. So, you can see it’s pretty hard, which is perfect. If at any time this dough gets too soft, especially on a hot day, don’t hesitate to throw it back in the freezer to chill it up again because nothing worse than a dough melting on you while you’re trying to fit it into a tart pan. I’m just loosening the parchment on both sides. We only need one piece of parchment. Now, now to get this dough into this tart pan, there’s a cool way to do it that’s pretty foolproof, especially if you’re a beginner. What we’re going to do is is a 9in tart pan with a removable bottom. We’re going to take out the bottom and we’re going to use this as a stencil or like a big old biscuit cutter and we’re going to press it into the dough. We’re going to cut out a round that’ll pretty much fit right into the bottom of the tart pan. All right. Now, to go up the sides, what we’re going to use is a ruler and a pairing knife. Now, this ruler is about an inch wide, and you want strips that are about an inch wide. Using the ruler as a stencil, we’re just going to cut strips of tart dough. I find you need about three of them. You’ll have extra dough here, so don’t worry if you need to patch it or if you screw one up. There’s plenty of dough to work with. Now, to fit this into the tart pan, gonna put the bottom of the tart pan back in and then lift up this nice big piece that we cut out. We’re just going to drop it into the tart pan. There we go. Like I said, it pretty much will cover the bottom of the pan. What you want to do is take your fingers and really the flesh of your finger and really press that dough right into the corner. And if it smears up the side of the tart pan, that’s fine. You just want to make sure it’s a nice tight corner. Nice and flat on the bottom. Now, using the strips, we’re going to start laying them up up the sides of the tart pan. What you want to do is you want to sort of nestle the dough into these curves. You don’t want to press it and stretch it out. You just want to ease the dough into that fluted edge. And on the ends, overlap it ever so slightly. You really won’t see any of these seams in the thinnest tart shell. I’m going to go around one more time. Really make sure it’s pressed into the fluted edge and also kind of secure the seam where the sides meets the bottom. All right, that looks perfect. This tart shell now needs to go into the freezer to firm up before we can bake it. And we’ll trim it just before it goes in the oven. And these scraps, let me tell you, they are delicious. Don’t throw them away. Sprinkle them with a little sugar, maybe a little cinnamon. Throw them in an oven. Instant cookies. Once the tart shell is chilled, use a pairing knife to trim off the extra dough. Spray a large sheet of aluminum foil with veg oil spray and lay it over the dough, really pressing it down into the corners. Then fill with pie weights. Again, make sure those pie weights get into the corners and up the sides because they’ll prevent that dough from slumping in the oven. Bake it at 350° for 30 minutes, spinning around halfway through. Then remove the pie weights and bake it for 10 minutes longer until it’s beautiful and golden. Oh, there’s nothing like the smell of a perfectly warm tart crust. Now you can see it’s perfectly done now that I’ve taken the pie weights out because it’s golden all the way around the edge and throughout the bottom. Now, most tart recipes before you fill it and bake it are going to ask that this tart shell be cooled completely and that takes about 2 hours. However, a baked tart shell held empty will last for a day or two. And really, it’s so easy to make once you have this in your arsenal. Endless dessert options will be yours for the taking. Time to make the rustic walnut tart, which is a breeze once you have your tart shell already baked and cooled. It’s going to start by making I like to call it the goo. It’s a sweet goo. Starts with just half a cup of packed brown sugar. This is 1/3 of a cup of corn syrup. To this, we’re going to add an egg. Just a single large egg. Little vanilla. Two teaspoons. Yeah, the base of this tart is a lot like a pecan pie with that sort of goo, but there’s a lot less of it. It’s just a very thin layer that holds the walnuts together. Just a tablespoon of Ian’s bourbon and a little bit of salt. Half a teaspoon of table salt. Now, you want to whisk this together until all the sugar is pretty much dissolved. All right, that looks pretty good and uniform. All right, whisk that till it’s mostly smooth. And we’re going to add some butter. I have four tablespoons of unsalted butter that I’ve melted and cooled. in my fancy little yellow butter pot. It’s my favorite pot in the whole kitchen cuz it was a gift. Oh yeah. Smells like bour and butter, which is not a bad thing. Into the tart shell it goes. And now for the walnuts, which is really cool cuz you think about a pecan pie, you put the walnuts in the goo and it’s all coated. But if you do it this way, some of the walnuts stick out of the tart and it has a lovely look. And it also means that some of the walnuts aren’t coated, so they get nice and toasted. Just a nice dual texture. All right, and it’s that easy. Into a 375 degree oven, metal rack. Takes about half an hour or so for it to bake through. Oh, this tart is perfectly cooked. You can see it’s bubbling. It’s souleted a little bit, but the filling is set and the walnuts on top have started toast. Now, you just got to let it cool completely, and that takes about 2 hours. The tart is completely cooled and it’s ready to serve. Now, this is a tart with a removable bottom. So, what you want to do is hold your hand up, pull the tart pan bottom off, and then to separate the tart from the pan bottom, you can just slide a knife or an offset spatula. Should really just slide right out. Have some coffee. Oh, that looks good. And the thing I really like to serve with this rustic walnut tart is some bourbon flavored whipped cream, which is just as easy to make as regular whipped cream. You have some heavy cream chilled. We’re going to add a little bit of bourbon, a little bit of vanilla, and some confectioner sugar. And I like doing it by hand, especially if you’re only doing a small amount. Just whisk it to nice soft peaks. Now for the best part, diving in. Oh, that’s a good sound. It means the crust is nice and crisp. If you see my dog coming up, it’s because he once stole a piece of this tart and he fell in love with Oh, yep. Speaking of fell in love with the flavors of it. Oh, look at that. You can tell it’s just held together those walnuts and the crust is nice and brown. Little bit of bourbon whipped cream. A little bit more. Yes, ma’am. Right off the [Music] point. M. They’re such simple flavors. The walnuts which toasted in the oven, the brown sugar, a little bourbon, and that perfect patrae with just a little simple whipped cream. It’s not a fancy dessert. It’s rustic, but the flavors are spot-on. See you next time. If you’re ready to take