Food for the Fit: Branzino in a Salt Crust with Fennel Grapefruit Salad

So I work for a magazine and I get to meet new people all the time.  Great! Love it!  Back in the summer I got the change to meet Serena Palumbo at the Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival.  What a petite doll and such a fashionista...I knew we would get along.  We recently started a column for The Boulevard magazine called Dishin' It Out with Serena Palumbo.  The first dish is an amazing starter especially for this petit bohemian that likes food but doesn't want a growing waistline.  The dish is gourmet and healthy and could even be the beginnings to a detox diet because of the components. 

Serena Palumbo, Rebecca Brooks and Aarti Sequeira at Sunny Anderson's Sunset n' Sliders

Here is the link to The Boulevard's website for Serena Palumbo's Branzino in Salt Crust with Fennel Grapefruit Salad.

I knew it was time to make this dish when my local Whole Foods had the fish on sale and my BF was out (he doesn't care for eating fish with bones). So last night I attempted to make this dish and surprisingly it came out pretty well.  I won't show images of my version because it's not a pretty as Serena's above.  But the flavors were the same and I felt really healthy after eating it.  I even saved some for today's lunch and the salad was even better today than yesterday, the marinating process heighten the flavors.

The Branzino,"European Seabass," is a light white fish baked thoroughly in kosher salt for 40 minutes.  Now the trick is to bake the whole fish, scales and all, and have the fishmonger clean the insides out.  Slice, very thin slices, of grapefruit, two slices are good if it's just for you. I didn't have the sage or the rosemary so I used dry bay leaves and then pour about 2 cups worth of Kosher salt on top of the fish. And Serena mentions in the article that the fish's eye will become white when it's done and it did. 

As the fish baked in the oven, I moved onto the salad.  Using my handy dandy mandolin (if you don't have one, get one they are indispensable especially for making salads), I sliced off the top of the fennel and again sliced very thin slices of fennel.  Then de-segmenting the grapefruit, okay I've never done this before so I actually found a YouTube video for the step-by-step process, with much success. These are the basic components of your salad.  Then the additional condiments: olive oil, S&P, capers and toasted pumpkin seeds. Make sure to properly drain the capers because those little suckers are salty, I thoroughly washed them a couple times with cold water.  Chop the capers into a mince consistency.  Now with the pumpkin seeds (pepitas) I had a hard time finding them de-shelled because I unfortunately forgot to get them at Whole Foods and had to rush to my local grocery store that I shall not even name because they never have anything I need.  So I had to de-shell the pumpkin seeds myself.  After a good 30 minutes of de-shelling I poured the seeds into a small ramekin and placed it in the oven in the last 10 minutes of cooking the fish.

Now the de-boning of the fish.  I would recommend letting the fish rest for a few minutes out of the oven, because that bad boy is hot!  The salty crust came off with ease and you are left with this beautiful flaky white meat inside.  Remove the skin, the slices and herbs and then with ease (this is why my fish broke up because I did not do it with ease) pull away the meat from the bone.  Once the top layer of meat is off, remove the bone and the same process with the bottom layer of meat.  And voila!

Compile the salad ingredients: fennel > grapefruit > pepitas > capers > drizzle the oil/s+p concoction
**Now to really bring a wow factor to the initial flavors I would recommend making this salad early before cooking the fish and letting it marinate for a good hour or even overnight.  The citrus from the grapefruit just enhances the dressing and cuts the bitterness of the fennel a bit. 


Fennel, as mentioned, has many healthy benefits, I'm going to get technical here. It contains phytonutrients like rutin that give it strong antioxidant activity.  The anethole, a primary component of the volatile oil in fennel, has been shown to reduce inflammation and to help prevent the occurrence of cancer. Fennel has an excellent source of vitamin C, fiber, folate and potassium. Now I consider fennel a great detox ingredient because of two reasons: fiber and potassium.  Fiber helps remove potentially carcinogenic toxins from the colon and reduce abdominal bloating. The potassium helps regulate the body's fluid levels and relieving the kidney of toxins.

Grapefruit is also another detox ingredient, it cleanses the liver and the kidney of toxins.  Grapefruits also contain vitamin C, A, B complex, E and K; it also contains Calcium, Phosphorous, Potassium and fiber (similar to the fennel).  The pectin fiber is beneficial to lowering a person's cholesterol level. 

Pumpkin seeds have their health benefits too!  They protect the prostate, improve bladder function, prevent osteoporosis (zinc), a natural anti-inflammatory, prevent kidney stones, lower cholesterol and is a mood-regulator (L-tryptophan).

So overall this dish was low in calories, tasted really good and brought my body and mind to a healthier level. So for the svelte fashionista, this is definitely an approved recipe!