Black sea bass over steamed and crispy basmati rice
At Hidden Leaf, restaurateur Josh Cohen’s brand-new restaurant in New York City’s Manhattan West neighborhood, chef Chai Trivedi wraps portioned pieces of black sea bass in banana leaf with lemon slices, kaffir lime leaves and ginger, places it in a hot pan and finishes it in the oven.
He combines basmati rice that he steams with a little mustard seed, with basmati rice that he fries in hot clarified butter with curry leaves and seasons them with lime juice, salt, pepper and butter.
He makes a French-style vadouvan curry sauce by sweating spicy red julienne chiles with garlic, shallot and green peppercorn and then adding mustard seed and curry leaf until the seeds start to pop. Then he adds kaffir lime leaves, turmeric powder and vadouvan curry base, cooking until he can smell the spices and then adds chicken stock, simmers and reduces it by a third and then adding coconut milk and simmering it for another eight minutes, finishing it with fish sauce, salt, sugar, lime juice, Thai basil and cilantro and then straining it.
He plates the fish over the rice, pours the sauce around the plate and garnishes it with pickled red chiles, pickled daikon, fried shallots and ginger strands and a mixture of herbs including celery leaf, Vietnamese mint, Thai basil, cilantro and rice paddy herb (also called rau om in Vietnamese and phak kayaeng in Thai)
Price: $36