Baked Redfish with Lemon Butter Sauce

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Then take a heavy shallow baking pan, spray it with Pam (or another brand of non-stick spray to make cleanup easy), and evenly spread the chopped onions, celery, green onions, and diced tomatoes over the bottom of the pan.

Meanwhile, take the redfish, wash it thoroughly (making sure all the blood along the backbone has been scrubbed away) and pat it dry inside and out with paper towels. Then liberally sprinkle on the seafood seasoning and rub it into the fish.

Now place the redfish on the vegetables in the baking pan. Then lay the lemon slices on top the fish so that they slightly overlap, sprinkle everything lightly with paprika, slide the pan uncovered into the oven, and bake for about an hour or so.

When the fish is browned and tender, gently remove it from the baking pan (be careful--it will fall apart!) and set it aside on a warming tray. Then pour all the drippings into a heavy aluminum skillet and bring them to a rapid boil.

At this point, stir in the wine and cook the sauce over high heat until the liquids reduce to about 1/2 of their original volume--this concentrates the flavor of the sauce. Then pour the contents of the skillet into a fine-mesh strainer, force the liquid and the vegetable pulp through the mesh, and return the liquid to the skillet (you can discard the skins left in the strainer).

Now over a medium-high flame, heat the liquid until it begins to bubble slightly. Then cream in the butter by adding it to the hot liquid a little piece at a time. NOTE: Do not stir the pan--just swirl it in small circles to incorporate the butter into the sauce.

Once the butter melts, you may find that the sauce is just the consistency you want--thin but rich. If it is too thin to your liking, however, sprinkle on a little of the gravy flour, whisk it into the sauce lightly, and continue to cook the flour and the sauce for about 3 minutes until it thickens and turns silky smooth.

When everything's ready, take a spatula, dish out a large portion of the baked redfish on a heated dinner plate, serve it alongside some N'Awlins-style potato salad, and generously ladle the lemon-wine-butter sauce over the top of the fish.