Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Poached Largemouth Bass (Apahap)

I love saltwater fish, and I love bass even more, poached or steamed. Rummaging in my freezer last week, I hauled out a two-pound largemouth bass (apahap) that I had planned to steam, but discovered that I did not have a steamer large enough to accommodate the fish. If that was not bad enough, I also did not have a fish poacher either, so I utilized a non-stick grill plan; filled it with water and dunked the fish when the water began boiling. I would have preferred steaming the bass, but I was pleasantly surprised that poaching was pretty good. I gave the fish a total of twenty minutes of poaching, ten minutes on each side, poking it with a fork to make sure that that it had reached the desired flakiness and still hold its flesh together.
I then hauled it out of the grill pan with two turners and placed it on a large dinner plate. A poached, unsalted bass would taste bland to a Filipino tongue, so I prepared a spread, or topping, consisting of a cup of mayonnaise, finely chopped white onion, and one chopped hard-boiled egg. Ordinarily, I would have added finely chopped celery or Chinese celery into the mix, but the fridge did not yield any of these, so I made do with what was on hand.
I mixed the ingredients together and added a pinch of salt and spread it on the poached bass, which was large enough for a single serving for me.