With the great come-back of Stripers, we all need some good recipes. This one is not good. This one is GREAT! Honest! This is a recipe you MUST TRY!
My standard striper recipe is pretty involved & takes close to 2 hours to prepare. So I set out to find something that would taste as good (or better) and would be easy to prepare. This is what I did. Wanting to stay with the tomato sauce theme of my original recipe, I mixed this up in my head and everyone is raving about it. Including people who say they don't like fish!

Ingredients:
1 Medium white or yellow onion diced
1 can whole Italian style tomatoes
3 cloves garlic (smashed and diced)
1 bay leaf
Thyme (to taste)
1 sprig of Rosemary
A dash or Oregano
A generous bunch of Basil (per my Italian mom, this always adds a nice sweetness)
Old Bay Seasoning
Salt & Pepper (to taste)
Dry red wine (optional)

Put the diced onion in a saucepan with some olive oil and add the garlic. Simmer on a medium heat until you see a sign of browning, At this point add the can of tomatoes (I added some fresh tomatoes from my garden, but this is only cause I have so many. I could have easily added a second can of tomatoes or stuck with the one). These tomatoes were added whole, as is. Once this began to simmer, add the spices & herbs (1 bay leaf, a generous amount of old bay (use what you like, I like a lot of this), thyme, a sprig of rosemary (separated if you like or leave whole for removal at the end), salt & pepper to taste, a dash of oregano and the basil (some leaves whole, others you can cut up to maximize the taste)).
Stir and when this simmers for about 5 minutes take out your potato masher & mash the tomatoes. Yep. Just mash the heck out of them. If they are still too stubborn or hard, let it simmer another 5 minutes and have at it again. Eventually all the tomatoes will be broken in little bits or sauce-like. Takes 3 minutes & is almost fun. Now cover partially and let this simmer for about 10 minutes.
While this is simmering, prepare the bass.
I cleaned all the dark meat and any bones. Rinsed the fish in some water & salt (fresh unsalted water should never touch saltwater fish, but use kosher salt as it wont leave behind too much taste). Then cut the fillets into chunks about 3 inch squares (about 3 times larger than bite-sized).
Now, add the fish to the sauce and stir a bit. Stir in a cup of red wine (all cooked tomatoes should always include something alcohol with red wine being at the top of the list or vodka if you are using any cream or dairy in your sauce. This alcohol will react with the acids of the tomato and vastly improve upon the taste). At this point you may optionally stir in a few tablespoons of tomato paste to help thicken the sauce as the fish and wine will dilute it further. Recover and let simmer for 20 minutes final minutes.
Remove form heat and serve over pasta (I like linguine for this dish)

This is basically my crab sauce recipe with the bass substituted and no blender either (makes for easy cleanup). It was GREAT!
I guarantee this is yet another great meal that you will want to make again and again.!

Good Fishing - Good Eating - Captain John
(cr) July 2007