Sea bass with prosciutto and crispy sage: PDO Cookery Challenge, part II

Chicken Saltimbocca is one of our family favourites. Saltimbocca means "jumps in the mouth" in Italian and is a popular Italian dish, where meat (typically veal or chicken) is wrapped in prosciutto with sage leaves tucked under it. But did you know you could also use the fish to make a Saltimbocca? I have tried this recipe with the salmon in the past, but for the PDO Cookery Challenge I decided to use a different kind of textured fish - a sea bass with prosciutto and crispy sage.

Just yesterday I mentioned that I was recently invited to take part in a PDO Cookery challenge, competing against 9 other popular food bloggers. 
For the challenge I got a hamper with the Italian Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) products: Grana Padano cheese and prosciutto di San Daniele.

"The "PDO - The taste of origin and tradition" campaign, launched in partnership with the Consortium of Prosciutto di San Daniele and the Consortium of Grana Padano Cheese, is designed to promote PDO products. Now in its third and final year, and funded by the EU and Italian government, it is focused on sharing the unique qualities & characteristics of these products in the UK and raising awareness of what PDO status means".

I often buy prosciutto, and use it for many dishes, for example, prosciutto-wrapped asparagus with the black olive tapenade, or grilled in piadina with cheese (as piadina could be quite pricey, use the supermarket own flatbreads like tortilla wraps, Sainsbury's tortilla wraps are perfect for a quick lunch, just chuck in a slice of prosciutto, add some sliced cheese, like Jarlsberg or Gouda, fold in half, grill and enjoy.

Sea bass with prosciutto and crispy sage
Ingredients:
2 sea bass fillets (about 185g)
2 slices of prosciutto
2tbsp olive oil
6 sage leaves
salt
a squeeze of lemon juice + lemon wedges to serve with

Wrap each sea bass fillet in a slice of prosciutto and quickly fry in a pan with the olive oil, cook them over a medium to high heat for about 5 minutes. Turn the fillets halfway through cooking, and squeeze some lemon juice over the fish.
I decided not to tuck the sage leaves under the prosciutto but fry them in the olive oil to make them go crispy. It takes a couple of minutes for the sage leaves to get crispy.

For the mashed sweet potato:
1 big sweet potato (400g)
1tsp butter
a dash of milk
30g Grana Padano, grated

Cook the sweet potato in a saucepan of salted boiling water for 15 minutes until tender. Drain, mash the sweet potato, add a blob of butter, grated Grana and a dash of milk, mix well.

Serve the sea bass with the mashed sweet potatoes on the side and with the scattered crispy sage leaves.

For more recipes and ideas have a look at my previous posts:
Peaches and pears with prosciutto di San daniele and Grana Padano cheese ( recipe by Giancarlo Caldesi)
Fit Chicken Saltimbocca
and
Crespelle with spinach and prosciutto: PDO Cookery Challenge, part I.


Disclosure: I received a hamper of PDO products to take part in the cooking challenge. All opinions and ideas are mine. 
For more information on these products including recipes from the renowned chef Giancarlo Caldesi, visit Prosciutto di San Daniele and Grana Padano.
For more information on the PDO programme, please visit
Ec.Europa.Eu site.

If you are curious to find out what the other bloggers cooked for the challenge, check out their blogs
An Italophile (lush homemade pasta!)
and Mummy Fever (delicious chicken stuffed with asparagus tips and wrapped in prosciutto)

Grilled sea bass with an avocado salsa

Sea bass is perfect on a grill. It is also a quick and healthy way of cooking fish.
For this dish you will need one sea bass fillet per person. You can marinate your sea bass in the white wine before cooking. Add some chopped fresh herbs (parsley) to the marinade.
Start with cutting a sweet pepper in two halves and placing in the oven for 25 mins in a little creamic dish with a drizzle of the olive oil, until soft.

In the meantime prepare your salsa: skin the avocado, cut into cubes, place the cubed avocado into a bowl, add a good squeeze of the lemon juice, half a teaspoon of the hot chilli paste, finely chopped spring onions, a tbsp of the olive oil, salt, sliced cucumber (about 1/4 of the big cucumber), and chopped roasted pepper.

Add a bit of the olive oil to the griddle pan and cook the fish on the very hot griddle pan for about 3 minutes skin down, turn over and cook for another 3 minutes.

While the fish is cooking, reduce the wine & herbs marinade in a small pan to a thicker sauce.
To serve, place a fillet of fish on a plate, drizzle some wine sauce, add a helping of salsa on a side.

Serve with a good chunk of bread. You can also serve it with the vegetables of your choice, baby new potatoes are lovely with the sea bass. Enjoy!