Sauteed Snapper with Tahini Sauce & Toasted Pine Nuts Recipe

Recipe by: Maureen Abood

Ingredients

For the tahini sauce:
½ cup Joyva tahini (well-stirred before measuring)
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup water
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

For the snapper:
2 fillets red snapper
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Garnish:
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

Instructions

Make the tahini sauce by placing the tahini, garlic and salt in the food processor. With the blade running, slowly pour in the water and lemon juice. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Depending on your tahini, the sauce can have a slightly bitter taste which can be corrected with more lemon juice, water, and salt.

Season fish with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Bring fish to room temperature, about ½ hour.

Heat a large heavy pan over high heat. Once pan is hot, reduce heat to medium high and add the butter and olive oil. Once the butter foams up and is very hot (but not browned yet), add fillets to the pan, being sure to leave space between fillets. The fish should sizzle the moment it touches the pan. If it doesn’t, remove the fillets and wait for pan to get hotter.

Cook fillets until golden brown on one side, about 3 minutes, flip them over and cook until golden brown on the second side and fish is opaque and flaky in the center, another 2-3 minutes.

Spread the tahini sauce on a platter. Lay the fish over the sauce and sprinkle the fish with toasted pine nuts and parsley. Serve the fish very warm.