Stacked Sea Bass, Brown Rice Pilaf, Seaweed with Cilantro Sauce

Sous Vide Details: Cook Sea Bass at 135F for 45 minutes

Ingredients, Serves 2:

• 2 Sea Bass steaks (smaller is better to fit nicely on the top of the stack)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1/2 T Dill to taste
• Rice Pilaf:
• 1 C Long grain brown rice
• 1/2 C Chopped parsley
• 1/2 C Thinly sliced (cross-wise) scallions (green section)
• 1 C Fresh seaweed salad (you can get this from your favorite Asian/Japanese market.  Get the ready to eat salad version, not the freeze-dried kind
• Cilantro sauce:
• 1 C Cilantro (don't use the stems)
• 1/4 C EVO
• 1/4 C Grapeseed oil
• 1 Chopped garlic clove
• 1/4 t Lemon zest
• 1 T Fresh lemon juice
• Special tool: 3" ring mold and tapper

By now, you can tell that I LOVE sea bass.  I know it's not too politically correct, but I don't get Chilean at least :-)  Since I got some new ring molds, I decided to create this "stacked" dish.  Stacking is a relatively new food plating style.  I decided in keeping with a "seafood" plate to integrate seaweed, a simple brown rice pilaf and a very nice "sea green" cilantro sauce.

For the sea bass, salt and pepper the steaks to taste.  Add the dill to each steak on both sides.  Put the steaks in separate bags and seal.  Drop them into the water bath set to 135F and cook for 45 minutes.

I used a rice cooker for the rice.  Put the rice in the rice cooker with 2 cups of water and start the rice cooker.  It should take roughly 30 minutes so you can start say 15 minutes after starting the fish.  Meanwhile, chop up the parsley and scallions and set aside.

To make the cilantro sauce, put the cilantro, garlic, lemon zest and lemon juice into a food processor.  Turn it on and while it's on, pour in the EVO and grapeseed oil.  Continue mixing until it emulsifies.

When the rice is done, mix it with the parsley and scallions.

When the fish is done, take it out of the bag.  You can optionally sear the skin if you want.  Pat it dry first.  A kitchen torch works best.  I actually like my skin o'natural, so I skipped this step.

Now you're now ready to plate.  Use a white plate and set your ring mold in the middle.  Spoon in enough seaweed to make roughly a 1/2" high stack.  Use a tapper to compress the seaweed into a nice compressed ring.  Don't smash it, just gently compress it.  Next, spoon in enough brown rice pilaf to make a 1" stack.  Again, use the tapper to compress the rice into a nice ring.  Clean up any ingredients that might have fallen outside of the rings and then gently remove the ring mold.  Gently set the fish on top of the stack.  Take a spoon and spoon the cilantro sauce over and around the stack.  Visually enjoy before eating!

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