Tomato Pesto Sea Bass
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1½ cup stock (chicken or vegetable)
- 1½ teaspoon pesto
- 2 fillets of Sea Bass
- ½ cup cherry tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Salt & Pepper
- Well start by making a blond roux - Add the 3 tablespoons to a sauce pan over low heat.
- Once the butter has melted, slowly whisk in the 3 tablespoons of flour.
- Continue to stir or lightly whisk the mixture until it becomes pasty and golden in color.
- Raise the heat to medium-low and slowly add in the stock, while whisking to ensure it doesn't separate.
- Continue to stir the mixture until it becomes a creamy texture. You can add extra stock if you would like the sauce to be thinner in texture or less if you would like it thicker.
I absolutely love pesto and am constantly looking for new dishes I can add it to. I even recently started growing my own basil so I can make my own pesto from scratch. Yes, my obsession with pesto goes that deep.
Being as I also recently learned how to make a roux (Its not nearly as complicated as it sounds!), I’ve been itching to make different sauces that would involve it. Well, making a pesto roux sauce seemed like a great idea and it was. We decided to pair it with Sea Bass here, but I think it would also pair splendidly with chicken if you don’t like fish as much as I do. The cherry tomatoes also add a nice texture and flavor to the dish but you could easily leave them out if you have a vendetta against tomatoes or allergy or some other strange aversion to them.
Now let’s start making the roux! You add the butter and flour together in the pan on low heat and stir until it looks like the consistency below with a slight golden hue to it.
Now that you have a roux , you can start whisking in the vegetable or chicken stock (whichever you prefer, I used vegetable and it turned out very good). Your sauce should now appear creamy and delicious instead of thick and pasty.
Once you are happy with the consistency of your sauce, you can add in the pesto. If your sauce is still too thick you can add more stock to thin it. If it is too thin, keep cooking it as it will thicken as you cook it.
Once the sauce is done, you can cook the tomatoes. They don’t take very long since we only want to warm them. Add them to a pan with a little bit of olive oil.
Make sure to salt and pepper the sea bass before you cook it.
Sear the fish 3 to 5 minutes on each side or until it is done and flaky.
