Sea Bass with Shrimp in Basil, Tomato and Saffron Sauce

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly versionPDF versionPDF version

Photo of Sea Bass with Shrimp in Basil, Tomato and Saffron Sauce

Last night I made Chilean sea bass fillets with shrimp in a basil, tomato and saffron sauce. It's been a long time since I last cooked sea bass and it turned out wonderful; A truly elegant dinner. The preparation is fairly simple: Sea bass fillets are cooked in white wine together with basil, cherry tomatoes, garlic, onion and saffron.

Ingredients

  • 4 Chilean sea bass fillets, ca. ½ lb / 200g each
  • 1 lb / 450 g raw shrimp, peeled, head and tail off
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp / 30g butter
  • 5 oz / 150g cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
  • 1 handful of fresh basil leaves, cut into fine shreds (chiffonade)
  • ½ tsp salt or to taste
  • ¾ cup / 180ml white wine
  • ca. ½ tsp saffron
  • a few fresh basil leaves for garnish
  • 1/3 cup / 80ml sour cream
  • ca. 1 tbsp corn starch in ¼ cup / 60ml water

Preparation

  1. Set heavy pan over low-medium heat. Melt butter, add chopped onion. Cook until soft and translucent, ca. 5-7 minutes. Do not brown.
  2. Add garlic and salt. Cook until garlic is soft.
  3. Add white wine, shredded basil leaves, tomatoes and saffron.
  4. Add sea bass fillets. Cover partially and cook until the fish is done. Turn once during cooking.
  5. Remove sea bass fillets from pan, set aside and keep warm.
  6. Add shrimp. Cook cook for about a minute.
  7. Stir in sour cream. Whisk the corn starch into ¼ cup / 60ml water and add to the pan. Turn up heat and stir frequently until the starch thickens.
  8. Serve fish fillets with the sauce. Garnish with fresh basil leaves.

Serve with pasta.

Preparation time ca. 1 hour

Yields 4 servings

Comments

Your Seabass dish

Looks great, Steffen! I like how you can see the actual threads of saffron in the sauce.

If I didn't want to use sour cream, could I use half-and-half or even yogurt?

Half-and-half

Thanks Nate!

Half-and-half should work. To prevent curdling, I would add the cornstarch first and then stir in the half-and-half (or cream).
Yogurt may be a bit too tangy and is in my experience also prone to curdling. When using yogurt, I would try to replace some of the white wine with fish (or chicken) stock.

Steffen

Love the Recipe!!

Steffen,
I love the recipe! I have never tried sea bass. Do you think this would work with Halibut? I am really excited to try this out. Great post. Keep up the good work!

Zesty

Fantastic recipe. I used

Fantastic recipe. I used creme freche ilieu of sour cream, but what a treat!