Rigatoni with sea bass and tomatoes

This week's menu

Monday: Rigatoni with sea bass and tomatoes, side of garlic bread

Tuesday: Navajo tacos on Indian fry bread

Wednesday: Indian BBQ chicken with homemade herbed naan and tzatziki

Thursday: Seafood and vegetable soup (Thai Sukiyaki)

Sometimes simple is better. Today's lunch consists of a clean tomato sauce flavored by clam juice and sea bass. The outcome is a light pasta, perfect for the fall, or even in 100 degrees like in Los Angeles. 

Rigatoni with Sea Bass and Tomatoes

Recipe from Food and Wine

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

3/4 lb rigatoni

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 small onions, finely chopped

2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

one 28-ounce can peeled Italian tomatoes, chopped, juices reserved

1 cup bottled clam juice

1 lb skinless fish fillets, such as sea bass, halibut, snapper or swordfish, cut into 3/4 inch dice

salt

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

Directions

1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain the pasta. 
2. Meanwhile, in a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add the onions and garlic and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the crushed red pepper and tomatoes with their juices and bring to a boil. Cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, for about 8 minutes, until the sauce is very thick. Add the clam juice and simmer until the sauce is thickened and slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Season the fish with salt and stir it into the sauce. Simmer for 2 minutes, until the fish is nearly cooked through.
3. Add the rigatoni to the sauce along with the parsley and cook 1 minute, stirring to coat the pasta. Serve.

Nutritional Analysis:
per serving: 486.5 calories, 6.8g fat (1.3g saturated, 2.3g polyunsaturated, 2.4g monounsaturated),  78.9g carbohydrates, 11.8g fiber, 29.8g protein

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

This dish is fairly easy to prepare and put together. You're basically making the sauce just as you would for a regular meat sauce pasta and tossing it together with the noodles. Since the fish cooks very quickly, the sauce doesn't take long to put together.

Since the pasta is very simple with the only ingredients being onions, tomatoes, and fish, I decided to add zucchini and eggplant. Cut one medium eggplant into large chunks and one medium zucchini into half-moon shapes, about 1/4 inch thick. 

Add the zucchini and eggplant after sauteing the onion with the garlic and red chili flakes. Saute until the vegetables begin to soften and than proceed with the recipe, adding the chopped tomatoes.

For the fish, you are not limited to sea bass, as stated in the recipe. My local market didn't have any of the above listed fish so I decided to use tilapia. Instead of chopping it into 3/4 inch dice, I cut the filet into large pieces, about 2 inches. After it has cooked in the sauce, I broke up some of the fish into smaller pieces while keeping the rest in large chunks. 

Remember to season your sauce with salt and pepper, even if you season the fish. This dish is wonderfully light and healthy. The sauce was very thin and not heavy at all. I could actually have the sauce by itself and serve it more like a soup it was so tasty! Serve with garlic bread and a glass of wine and you have a great meal.