Gotham Seafood Mystery Fish: Sablefish & Side Stripe Shrimp

It's become a tradition, Joe at Gotham Seafood sends us a mystery package of seafood when we are at Snowbird (thanks to Jeff’s generous brother Steve). Joe told us, “You’ll eat what I send you.”,  and I’m beginning to think Joe is playing with us. 

One year is was a cobia. He should have sent that fish out with a hatchet because we really could have used one to cut that baby up. Since we didn’t have a hatchet, we had to make do with a big knife and a wine bottle. You learn to be very inventive in the mountains.

This year it was “Canadian Sablefish” and packets of side stripe shrimp. Fortunately all the dinner guests love a challenge and by 5:00pm everyone knew sablefish was a type of cod that comes from the west coast of Canada. Our fish was pole caught and sustainable, so we weren’t being sent to the 9th ring of eco-hell, but it was also one butt ugly fish.

The side stripe shrimp are a pretty pink shrimp with, uh, stripes on their sides and a ton of roe attached to the outer shell. Very soft shelled, they felt like firmer bodied rock shrimp. A bit of Googling around and it seems they aren’t raised in big quantity, they are sustainable, they start out their lives as males where they fertilize the ladies for a year or two, then switch over to females and lay the eggs. There is some divine justice at work here.

So, the question is: 8 people are coming to dinner. You have these two fish on hand and 1 hour of prep time. What would you make?