Seven fishes

Christmas Eve
We had Barbara's cousin Eric, his family, friends, and other machatunim (people you're related to but it would take a genealogical chart and your mother-in-law to detail exactly how) over for Sette Pesci, the traditional Italian Christmas Eve fest of seven fishes, because none of us are Italian. Barbara has a childhood memory of Karen's dad, Ralph, doing twelve fishes! But maybe the scungilli (conch) just seemed like five extra.
Here are our seven:
1. Boiled shrimp with classic cocktail sauce (kid friendly)
2. Lox with cream cheese (kid friendly)
3. Little crab cakes with a chipotle remoulade (semi-kid friendly).
4. Octopus (not kid friendly): Still trying to recreate the octopus at Fino in London. Boiled the baby cephalopods for an hour to tenderize, sliced, then fried with a healthy shot of pimentón della Vera (see posts for Sept. 1 and Oct. 6). Added lemon juice.
5. Brandade. This was a new one for us: bacalà--salt cured dried cod--reconstituted by soaking in water for 24 hours, then ground with garlic and whipped with olive oil and cream. Served with lots of crudités* for dipping. Delish--close to whitefish salad but more primeval.
*Pronounced Crud-ites, the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Krud (and weren't they all)
The great advantage was that most of these could be prepared the day before.
6. Skate with black butter. Wish I had a picture of the skate, which is truly primordial in its ugliness. Very easy to prepare however. Just dropped the skate wing into the court bouillon left over from cooking the shrimp. About 20 minutes later, remove to a cutting board. The slimy yet spiky skin peels right off, and you simply scrape the rich meat off the central cartilage. For beurre noir, heat butter till it begins to brown, then add lots of capers. Fry them and add a shot of lemon juice. Pour over fish.
7. Baby blues. Possibly Barbara's favorite fish - they match her eyes. So glad we found two little bluefish at Jungle Jim's. Tossed them into a 400º oven, with the new probe in the thickest part. When it beeped at 125º (leaving us free to talk with friends), arranged them on a platter to look like Pisces (which they are) and anointed with Barbara's basil oil.

For those who were either fed up with fish or still hungry by this time, there was a huge platter of baked ziti; in fact, they were campanelli drenched in tomato sauce thickened with pureed sun-dried tomatoes, then layered with mozzarella and parmesan.
We ate the smaller cold dishes while nattering around the house. Then al tavola! for the big hot fish. Barbara expertly flensed the blues. Everyone tried everything. The kids tried most things that didn't have suckers.

For desert, more of the piña colada cake (we're officially out of lady fingers now), lovingly frosted with whipping cream, and biscotti: pistachio and cranberry (green and red for Christmas), and hazelnut-chocolate chip (both from the 1992 Gourmet that we keep with the cookbooks). Tobias had brought a rosé dessert wine, SoloRosa, that went perfectly with them.