My catch of the day is freshwater fish from the famous Finger Lakes.

Announcer: "Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ [Middle Eastern music playing] Resembling fingers in pattern, the famous Finger Lakes region is widely known for their stunning and scenic sights, award-winning wineries, and hosting a fabulous feast of freshwater fish.

And what better way to represent this rich region than by sharing one of my special Lebanese fish dishes inspired by the Finger Lakes, simply called samke harra.

Translating to "spicy fish," samke harra is one of the most famous fish dishes to hail from Lebanon.

And with just one bite, I know you will love it, too, along with my toasted orzo and long grain rice pilaf that is cooked to perfection, and my scrumptious side dish of sauteed arugula greens and leeks that, together, create a light, lovely, and luscious Lebanese meal that you can easily make any day of the week.

My fish, spice, and everything nice will reel you in hook, line, and sinker.

It's fish and spice and everything nice in our Lebanese fish day today, and we are making one of the most famous dishes that is seen and eaten throughout Lebanon and also in America, too, and it's called samke harra.

And "samke" means "fish," and "harra" means "spice," so it's spicy fish.

And I have these beautiful, whole bronzini right before me.

They've been cleaned by my local fresh fish market for me, and we are going to be making our samke harra dish with these today.

You could certainly use a filet of fish as well, like a cod or the bronzini itself, or also red snapper or salmon would be equally nice, too, for this dish.

So we are simply going to start by layering these in our casserole dish that I have right before me.

So we're gonna simply start with our olive oil right over here.

We're gonna drizzle some in the bottom of our casserole pan.

It's about 1/3 of a cup, I would say.

We want to make sure that we have it nice and moistened for our beautiful, fresh, flaky fish right before me, and I'm just gonna take the whole fish just like so.

They're nice and cleaned for me, so they're ready to go, and you can see that I have them on fresh, ice-cold ice.

[Laughs] OK.

So now I'm just gonna wipe my hands really quick.

We are going to salt them with some sea salt... [Grinding] right on top.

Just like this.

It's a really simple dish to make, and it's absolutely delicious.

A delicious way to have fish, and especially the bronzini, which is a type of Mediterranean sea bass, actually.

It's also referred to as that.

And I'm just gonna sprinkle some white pepper on the fish, too.

That looks beautiful.

And now I'm gonna get the other side as well, so that way, they're really sort of seasoned up well for us.

All right, I'm gonna flip these back over on the other side, and I'm gonna take a sharp, small paring knife and I'm just going to make some scores going right across.

Just like that.

Not too deep.

Just a little bit, because I want the fresh lemon juice, and I'm gonna drizzle a little bit more olive oil on top, too, to sort of seep in those scores of the fish and get it nice and flavorful for us.

We're gonna grab some lemons.

Gonna get about, oh, 3 of them.

We're gonna get some nice, fresh lemon juice right on these nice, fresh fish that we have.

Fresh fish and fresh lemon juice are a match made in heaven, so you can't go wrong when you're using the fresh lemon juice.

And now what I'd like to do is another sort of added touch.

I'm just going to slice the other two lemons that I have right here in some nice rings, and I'm going to put those all around the fish.

This fish, actually, my grandmother, my situ, would make often for my mom and her siblings in Lebanon, and I've sort of taken her traditional recipe and put my own twist to it.

My grandmother, my situ, she's such an unbelievable cook, and my cooking, I'm third-generation now, really stems from her.

Her food philosophy with fresh being always best and never compromising flavor or the quality of ingredients, for that matter, and then her passing that on to my mother.

So this one's for my situ.

[Giggles] OK, so we are going to get these into the oven.

I have it preheated at 375 degrees, and they are gonna bake just for about 20 minutes.

We're gonna keep an eye on them because we want them to be nice and flaky for us.

And also, you can fry the fish.

That's another way that they've been traditionally prepared for this dish, but you know me-- fresh is always best.

I like to keep things as healthy and nutritious as possible, so we're gonna bake them today.

I love living in the greater Finger Lakes region because it's such an absolutely beautiful and breathtaking place to be, and it completely inspires me for my cooking show, my cookbook, all of the creating and writing and cooking that I do, and all of the extensions of my Julie Taboulie brand.

We're gonna get to making our spicy tahini sauce.

So I have 6 cloves of garlic, and to this I'm going to add this bunch of parsley.

Just place it right in our food processor.

And I also have one cup of dried, toasted pine nuts, too, and this is gonna give a lot of sort of nutty flavor to our spicy tahini sauce.

And I simply just toasted them dry in a saute pan.

OK, so now we're just going to finely mince these up.

[Whirring] OK, beautiful.

Just want to check it, and it looks fantastic, so that is what we are going for.

And now we're gonna add our tahini paste.

Also, sesame seed paste.

I'm just actually gonna shake it a little bit.

Make sure to use really good quality tahini when you're making any tahini sauce.

And also any types of mezze dishes where we use tahini, too, like our hummus or baba ghanouj or batenjen mishwee.

This is actually 16 ounces, so it's two cups, and we're going to use all of it.

Just like that.

And to this we're just gonna add a little bit--I have one cup of cold water, but we're not gonna use it all right now.

We're just gonna use a little bit just so we can help to get the tahini going first.

It's about, oh, about a half a cup.

We're just gonna give it a whirl.

[Whirring] OK, that's it.

We just want to incorporate it with the garlic and the pine nuts and the parsley.

And now I have some fresh lemon juice.

I squeezed about 6 lemons, so I have about two cups of lemon juice, so we're gonna see how this looks, too.

We're gonna add maybe a cup to start with.

A little bit more.

That's about a cup.

And we're also going to season it with one tablespoon of sea salt.

And don't worry--the spices are coming up.

Ha ha ha!

We're gonna give it a whirl again.

And we're basically going for the sauce, the consistency not to be too thick and not to be too thin.

We kind of want it right in the middle.

[Whirring] We're gonna add a little bit more lemon juice.

[Whirring] OK, let's check on it now.

I think this is the right consistency, and it is.

You can see that it definitely coats my silicone spatula here and it easily drips down, but it's not too thin, and it's not too thick.

So now to this, we're gonna make it spicy.

We're gonna add some cayenne to it.

I'm gonna add about half a tablespoon.

[Whirring] OK, so let's check on this, and it looks lovely.

To this we're gonna add about 1/3 of a cup of olive oil.

Just gonna eyeball it.

You want the oil to give a really nice, rich flavor to the sauce, and it's gonna bubble away as well once we pour it over the fish and it bakes.

[Whirring] OK, we're going to pour our tahini sauce into our bowl so you guys can see how lovely this looks.

Look at that.

You can see it's nice and fluid.

It's not too thin, and it's not too thick, and you can see the sort of specks of parsley and also the pine nuts running through it as well.

So, beautiful.

We have our spicy tahini sauce that's gonna top our baked bronzini, our Mediterranean sea bass fish.

In the meantime, we are gonna get started on our Arabic rice and our greens to go with our Lebanese-style fish today.

Where I live in the Finger Lakes region, we have a scenic route called Route 20, and as you're driving along sort of the rolling hills, you'll come across beautiful farmlands and lakes.

You'll come across little historic villages and towns, and it's just such a beautiful route to take, and that kind of takes you all throughout the region.

I'm starting our two side dishes for our spicy fish day today, and they are, the first one is a Lebanese-style rice pilaf.

So I melted two tablespoons of butter, and to this I'm gonna add a half a cup of orzo, and we're gonna toast the orzo in this butter.

And basically, what we want to do is really get a nice, brown, sort of nutty color on our orzo.

So now my orzo is sort of toasting up beautifully in that butter.

You can see it kind of bubbling away, and that's definitely what you want.

You don't want it to be lightly brown.

You want it to be a nice sort of rich golden brown color.

All right, so now that's beautiful, we're gonna immediately add our long grain rice that I'm using today.

I'm using two cups, so I have two cups of our long grain rice, and I'm first just sort of gonna coat it with the butter and get it involved with the toasted orzo.

It's always a good idea to toast the rice, too.

It also helps to give it lots of flavor.

So that's another little Julie Taboulie trick and tip-- ha ha ha!--in making our rice taste absolutely amazing.

OK.

So now we are going to season this with sea salt.

It's about one teaspoon of sea salt.

And we are going to add 4 cups, actually, 4 cups and a fourth cup of water.

[Sizzling] Whoo!

I love that sound.

Ha ha ha!

Sizzles right up.

That was two cups, and now two more cups.

So it's a two-to-one ratio.

Two cups of liquid to one cup of rice, and we have the orzo, so I just want to add about 1/4 of a cup so we give enough water for the cooking of our orzo in there, too.

OK, so now we're just going to stir this just to incorporate everything.

And at this point, we want to make sure to taste it as well.

We're just gonna taste the broth.

We want to make sure that it's seasoned right.

Mm.

And it is.

So I can really taste sort of the buttery flavor and the sea salt in there, too, and that's key so that the rice is seasoned well.

It's gonna be more challenging if you have to try to season it after it's been cooked, so make sure to season it and taste it, and we just did, so now we're gonna place our lid on our pot.

We're gonna turn our heat to high, and we're gonna bring it to a boil.

And then once it starts to boil, we're gonna lower the heat and let it slowly simmer away until almost all of the water has been absorbed.

OK, so now we're gonna get started on making our greens of the day to go with our fish dish that we are making.

And I have this beautiful arugula right before me and I also have one of my favorite ingredients to work with, and I think that they kind of get overlooked a lot, so hopefully you guys can take a second look at these leeks that I have right before me.

I'm just gonna chop off the ends just like that, and also a little bit of the tough ends on the green parts as well.

And we're just gonna slice this down the center just like so.

OK, so you have these two beautiful halves.

And then we're just gonna run our knife through them to make, like, half-moon shape.

Just like that.

They have a really nice sort of mild onion flavor, and they have a really nice texture, too.

And they're gonna blend really, really beautifully with our arugula.

And then I have a nice, big bowl of cold water.

We're just gonna submerge them into the water, and what's gonna happen is that the onion leeks, just like this, are gonna rise and float to the top of the water, as you can see, and any sort of remaining sand or soil is gonna go right to the bottom.

And that's the best way to clean the leeks.

OK, so now we are going to get our beautiful arugula right on our board.

It's a beautiful bunch that I have here.

And just want to sort of take it in two sections.

And I already washed them thoroughly.

So I'm just gonna sort of try to get all the stems, all the end stems together.

Makes it really easy for us to work with, and we're just gonna sort of, in one chop, we're gonna sort of just get rid of the thick end stems.

And then I'm just going to run my knife through them in sort of large sections just like that.

So now we're gonna get our greens cooking.

I'm just gonna get our heat onto, like, medium.

That's a good temperature to start with, and we'll see how we do.

I'm gonna add to this about 1/3 of a cup of olive oil.

We have a lot of greens, so I want to make sure that they are coated really well.

And now we're gonna grab our leeks, and you can sort of see the bottom of the water bowl.

Any sort of sand or soil has sort of settled to the bottom.

And you're just going to sort of take a handful at a time.

You could also drain and strain them, but I'm just sort of working right here at the board, so it makes it really easy.

And we're just gonna get those right in, just like that, and we're gonna season our leeks with a little bit of sea salt.

[Grinding] OK, so now we're going to toss up our leeks in our oil.

Whoo!

It smells so good already.

It's a great, great ingredient to cook with, so I hope that you all give it a second look.

Now we're gonna add-- in handfuls, we're gonna add our arugula.

[Sizzling] Looks beautiful.

Just makes you feel good when you're cooking with greens.

You know, you see this bright, fresh, vibrant green color right before you, and you already feel healthy already.

Ha ha ha!

And we're gonna season those, too, with some sea salt.

We want to make sure to season each layer.

Just a little touch.

And we're gonna toss them around.

Smells delicious in here.

It's a delicious fish day today in the Julie Taboulie kitchen.

Ha ha ha!

So our baby arugula and our leeks are cooking up beautifully in our saute pan, and I just had a little bit of oil and a little bit of sea salt in there, too.

And now we're just going to do a last finishing touch.

I have some fresh red pepper flakes since this is our spicy fish day.

So I'm just gonna take about a half a teaspoon of our crushed red pepper, and this is completely optional, so if you do not want to make your greens spicy, then you don't have to.

But I'm going all out with spice today with our fish, so I want to have our greens to have a little bit of a kick, too.

Wonderful.

All right.

These look good.

I'm just gonna turn off our heat.

I want to give them a quick taste to make sure that everything is on point.

Mm.

It is delicious.

I love the texture of the baby arugula and the leeks, and I love that little kick from the red pepper flakes, too.

It's absolutely sensational.

It's gonna go really well with our spicy fish dish.

So now let's check on our Lebanese-style rice.

Whoo!

It looks perfect.

I'm just gonna grab a fork.

I'm gonna turn off our heat.

I can see, visibly see that all of the water has been absorbed.

I'm just gonna sort of fluff it up just like that.

You can see that beautiful brown toasted orzo just sort of running through our long grain rice.

Let's give it a taste.

Mm!

It's cooked up perfectly.

It's not mushy at all, it's nice and fluffy, it's nice and rich and buttery, and it's gonna be absolutely delicious with our fish.

And speaking of our fish, I can smell that it is done, so we are going to get our spicy tahini sauce all over it and get this fantastic fish dish plated up.

I am lucky to live in such an agriculturally rich area, whether it be me sourcing all of my fresh produce, fresh vegetables and herbs and fruit, or fresh farm eggs, fresh fish like we're doing today, local honey, apple orchards.

You name it, the region has it, and as a chef, I must admit that I feel a little bit spoiled.

So, as you can see, I just pulled out our bronzini, which is our Mediterranean sea bass type of fish.

And I simply baked it with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, sea salt, and white pepper with some fresh lemon sort of slices going around it as well, and now we're gonna make it our Lebanese-style samke harra, our spicy fish dish.

So I have our spicy tahini sauce that we made.

We're just gonna pour this right over.

Whoo!

Looking good.

Looking very good.

Our tahini sauce has the garlic, parsley, pine nuts that we finely minced up, and then we have the tahini, which is the sesame seed paste with fresh lemon, and our cayenne pepper, which makes it spicy.

We're gonna put this back into the oven.

We're just gonna bake it for another, like, 5 minutes or so.

We want the tahini to really kind of get nice and hot and sort of bubbly with the fish, and it's also gonna seep into the fish, because we scored it as well, and give it really nice flavor.

Look at our beautiful spicy fish, our samke harra.

It has baked up beautifully for us, as you guys can see right before me, and I cannot wait to plate it up!

So what we're gonna do, I have my nice sort of-- I have these little cute fish platters, so I thought it'd be very fitting to use fish platters for my spicy fish dishes today.

And I'm just sort of--sort of spoon them out.

Just gonna get both spoons on either side.

Just lift them right up just like that.

Beautiful.

Can see that spicy tahini sauce that we have.

Just has this beautiful golden color.

Just gonna lift it just like that.

And we're gonna get some of this nice, spicy, and hot tahini sauce.

Spicy hot and hot right out of the oven.

Ha ha ha!

I'm just gonna pour this right over.

Beautiful.

And now for some finishing touches.

I have some pine nuts that we toasted up before with some butter.

We're just gonna sprinkle these right on top.

All around.

It's gonna make a really nice sort of crunchy bite with our flaky fresh fish, and we also have the pine nuts that were minced up in our tahini sauce, so it's really gonna sort of enhance that flavor as well.

And I'm gonna add just a little bit more fresh flat-leaf parsley.

Just a little sprinkle.

And also a little bit of paprika, just like that.

And I have some lemon wedges, too.

Can kind of place these going around just like that.

OK, so speaking of plating, I'm gonna make myself a nice, little dish of our spicy fish today that we made.

I'm gonna start with my Lebanese-style rice pilaf.

I'm gonna place this right in the center of my plate.

And you can see that there's a theme with pine nuts and parsley going on.

Just like that.

And I'm gonna go for my greens.

I'm gonna place these going around sort of the rice.

I think I could eat greens and grains all day.

And I'm going to just sort of take a little bit of the fish just like that... and place it right on top.

So I'm just gonna grab myself a little bit of that fish, and because it's a whole fish, you just want to make sure the piece of fish that you take, you remove any small bones.

And a little bit of our greens and the rice.

That makes it a really nice bite.

Mm.

Wow.

[Indistinct] The combination is sensational.

It's nice and spicy but not too spicy, and you can add more heat if you like, and I love the bite with the fish and the greens and the rice, and I love that spicy tahini sauce, too.

I'm so happy that I could share my Lebanese fish with you all today called samke harra, spicy fish, and I wish for you to make this for your family and friends at home, too.

Until we cook again, I wish you and yours to always takloull bil' hanna-- eat in happiness.

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Cook, create, and celebrate Julie's authentic recipes right at home.

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"Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ [Middle Eastern music playing]