Dinner sat on the counter longer than I planned for it to. The reasons don’t matter much. Plans shift in this house more than they hold, and food made for one moment is often eaten in another, if it’s eaten at all.
Most things suffer for that gap. A fried egg does. Greens wilt past the point of forgiving. Fish, usually, is the worst of it, unless the fish was never meant to be eaten right away.
Escabeche is fried first and pickled after, built for exactly this kind of delay. Cooks on both sides of an ocean landed on the same idea without comparing notes: fish that outlasts the day it was cooked, held under vinegar and its own aromatics until the acid finishes what the oil started. I don’t mind a meal that gets eaten a day later than intended. This one prefers it.
Serves 3
1 lb small white fish fillets, cut into pieces salt flour, for dusting oil, for frying 1 onion, sliced thin 1 carrot, sliced thin 4 cloves garlic, sliced 1 cup vinegar 1/2 cup water 2 bay leaves 1 teaspoon black peppercorns 1 dried chili, optional
Fish is salted, dusted in flour, and fried in about half an inch of oil until golden at the edges, a few minutes a side. Out of the pan onto a plate lined to catch what drips.
All but two tablespoons of the oil are poured off. The same pan takes the onion and carrot, softened but not browned. Garlic goes in toward the end, before it has a chance to turn bitter.
Heat drops low. Vinegar and water go in carefully, followed by the bay, peppercorns, and chili. A short boil, just enough to round off the vinegar’s edge.
The hot vinegar and vegetables are poured over the fish. Left uncovered until cool, then covered and set aside.
Not eaten today. Tomorrow it’s better. The day after, better again, the fish gone dense, the vinegar settled into something closer to a dressing than a shock. Eaten cold, straight from the dish, the onions given equal weight to the fish.
It keeps a week if given the chance. It rarely gets one.
