Tag: sea

Cooking school: sea bass, how to recognize it – Italian Cuisine

The sea bass is an excellent fish ideal for your kitchen preparations. Here are our tips for choosing it

Yes okay, go for the sea bass, but how to choose it? In fact, even before cleaning and cooking it, there is the most important step, namely recognize the best at the time of purchase, so as not to have any nasty surprises once it is too late, perhaps even in the presence of guests.

Sea bass and sea bass?

Whether it is a sea fish living along our coasts, in the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic, is a sure thing. That has a medium-large body, slender and covered with scales, also. And it is well established that it is recognizable by the grayish back, silver sides and white belly, with dimensions generally between 20 and 50 cm.
But why someone calls it sea bass and other sea bass, if it is the same fish? There are two versions: the first claims that it is one sex-related issue, or bass when laying eggs, sea bass when it fertilizes them as a male. The second, on the other hand, brings the two names back to one geographic difference, for which sea bass derives from the Veneto and from the Lombard bransin, that is branchino as fish with the gills in sight, while it basses from the very acute and sharp preopercular spine, just like an edge.

Six little secrets for choosing the best sea bass or sea bass

First of all it is good to remember that this fish has one very fine meat, white and lean, with a unique and delicate flavor well recognizable among many. For this reason it is often consumed also by those who do not love fish too much, as it is able to withstand its light and graceful taste, both grilled and baked or even pan-seared.
On the market we find it both fresh and frozen, obviously in this second case it will be more difficult to evaluate them following features:

One. The sea bass must have a delicate, pleasant, non-ammoniacal smell.

Two. The appearance must be bright.

Three. The body must be rigid and firm.

Four. The scales must be perfectly adherent.

Five. The gills must be pink-red, of no other color.

Six. The eye must be alive and protruding with the black pupil, not at all not reddened.

To learn with our chefs also how to clean and cook this and many other fish, sign up for our courses: you will be followed carefully and gradually in each step, so that you can then make only the best at home!

Texts by Giulia Ubaldi

The bread made with sea water arrives – Italian Cuisine

It is low in salt and contains three times magnesium, four times more iodine, plus potassium, iron and calcium. Now it is also distributed in supermarkets

It is prepared without the addition of salt, yet it is really tasty, because this bread is done with sea water. The marine bread, already proposed by some Neapolitan bakeries, now also arrives in the supermarkets of the chain Sole 365. To produce it we use themicrobiologically pure sea water of Steralmar, a company from Bisceglie, the only one in Italy to supply seawater for food use, thanks to a patented purification process.

And the result is a special bread hyposodic, which offers many health benefits over the common one. As explained by the Cnr – Institute of Food Sciences, which has studied the properties comparing them with those of an ordinary bread, «it has a significantly lower salt content, equal to1.1 percent on 100 grams of product compared to the control bread which is 1.6 percent (the national average is around 2-2.5 percent) ".

Less salt is better

The taste and biological properties of common salt, sodium chloride, are mainly related to sodium, an essential element for the body, but for which, unlike other nutrients, problems of deficiency are hardly present. One gram of salt corresponds to 0.4 grams of sodium. The WHO (World Health Organization) recommends a daily salt consumption of less than 5 grams, equal to 2 grams of sodium. Because an excessive consumption of salt determines not only an increase in arterial pressure, with an increased risk of developing serious diseases of the cardiovascular system, but also a greater risk of contracting pathologies such as tumors of the digestive system, osteoporosis and chronic kidney disease. The Italians, however, are still far from the recommended values, according to data from the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control of the Ministry of Health: the average daily consumption of an adult is about 11 grams for men and 9 for women.

Important minerals

Sea bread is also particularly rich in essential elements for health, mineral salts and antioxidants: it contains triple magnesium, quadruple iodine, plus potassium, iron and calcium. Sea water contains 92 elements of the Mendeleev table, that is almost all those existing in nature. Refined salt, on the other hand, is deprived of many important minerals, such as magnesium, potassium, calcium and iron. The sea water also seems to facilitate leavening: this is another aspect that the CNR is investigating.

Recipe Sea bass marinated with chicory – Italian Cuisine

Ingredients

120 g sea bass fillet
60 g mixed chicory
40 g yogurt
2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil
half lemon juice
fresh dill
salt

Duration: 30 min

Level: Easy

Dose: 1 people

For the recipe of sea bass marinated with chicory, slice the sea bass and marinate for 10-15 minutes with half the lemon juice, a teaspoon of oil and a pinch of salt. Season the chicory (cut chicory and rosette, dandelion) with an emulsion made with the remaining oil and lemon juice, salt, place it in the dish, cover with slices of fish drained by marinating and serve with a sauce of yogurt flavored with dill fresh and salt.