In French you’d describe that you’d like 180 grams of sea bass as one hundred and four times twenty. You can imagine my poissoinnier just couldn’t imagine what one hundred and twenty times four was. So, I showed him my calculator instead. He responded in some local numerical dialect that I had to ask my French teacher about the next day. All of this for a good, but not great, fish recipe from our girl.

Of course, I didn’t follow it to a t- I never do, so I’ll share with you what I did. It feels like a good base of a recipe, but definitely needs some time to perfect.

This fish looks like a curled up shoe. Fish photography could also use some work…

Pan-seared Fish with Herby Browned Butter

• Serves 1
• 2 T. butter at room temp
• 1 T. chopped chives
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1/2 of a shallot, minced
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 of a lemon
• 1/2 T. canola oil
• 6-8 oz. (180g) of white fish.

1. In a small bowl, combine butter, chives, garlic, and shallot. Season with salt and pepper and the tiniest squeeze of lemon juice.
2. Season fish with salt and pepper, set aside.
3. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat, then add oil.
4. Pat dry fish.
5. Once the oil is hot, add the fish and don’t move it unless it needs pushed down should it curl up like an old shoe.
6. Flip in about 3-4 minutes when bottom has browned.
7. Add herb butter to the pan.
8. Cook the other side of the fish about 3 minutes.
9. Remove from heat and drizzle fish with shalotty, buttery goodness.