The temperature here in Spain has finally gone down enough for me to be able to put the oven on which I’m pretty happy about for many reasons, not least because I can finally think straight.
And besides, throwing things in the oven is my favourite way to cook because the oven does all the work while I can safely drift off and do other things, relying on my trusty timer to remind me that I am cooking.
So, into the oven went this sea bream, stuffed with whatever fresh herbs I had, lemon zest, black garlic and lots of olive oil, and it was delicious.
While many people love eating fish, most are intimidated by cooking it and so I really recommend that you flip back to a previous post I wrote with some useful tips about choosing and cooking fish. In that post I talk about cooking fish on a griddle which is one very common way to cook any fish. This recipe shows another very popular method which is baking it in the oven. If anything, cooking fish in the oven is even easier as all you have to do is season it, set your timer and remember to take it out. Always bear in mind that it’s easier to overcook than undercook fish and overcooking fish ruins it.
The herbs I used in this recipe were what I had at hand: flat leaf parsley, coriander leaves, mint, a few basil leaves, a sprig or two of thyme. The black garlic, which you can read all about here, adds another surprising hit of yumminess, hard to describe, sweet and citrusy.
Oven Baked Sea Bream with Herbs and Black Garlic
Ingredients
for 2 people
- I x 500-600 g sea bream cleaned and butterflied*
- Large handful of fresh chopped herbs – e.g parsley, coriander leaves, dill, mint, basil
- 6 -7 cloves of black garlic chopped
- Lemon zest from 1/2 lemon
- Olive oil
- Salt flakes, black pepper
- Handful of cherry tomatoes (optional)
*If you don’t like the idea of cooking fish with the head on, ask your fishmonger to take it off or even prepare two de-boned filets for you. You can join the fillets together with string or a wooden skewer but adjust cooking time accordingly.
Method
Heat the oven to 200 C.(400 F /gas mark 6)
Place some olive oil and a sprinkling of coarse salt in a baking tray. Place the fish on top, open it out and spread your filling of herbs, black garlic and lemon zest. Add another sprinkling of salt flakes, and drizzle or two of olive oil and close the fish. Close the fish and use some string or a wooden skewer to keep the filling inside. Baste the top of the fish with oil from the baking tray, throw in the cherry tomatoes if using, grind over some black pepper and pop into the oven for 15- 20 minutes. When the eye becomes sunken and turned opaque, you know your fish is done.
Open the fish and serve one side per person, basting with the juices from the pan. The fish should be firm but moist and full of flavour.
Note: Black garlic is available in most major supermarkets in the UK and also in Spain. I’ve always been able to find it in Mercadona and El Corte Ingles. If you can’t find where you live. you can easily get it online.