Ideas for baking whole fish

Superwife

Sun, Jun 02 2013, 12:39 am

I'm not a fish lover, but I was surprised to find that I like a recipe called "salt encrusted" fish. You can use sea bass or trout. I dont have a recipe on hand but if you google it, I'm sure some nice recipes will come up. You will basically need 1 fish, a bunch of fresh herbs (dill parsley rosemary etc) 1 lemon, kosher salt and 1 raw egg white. Stuff the fish with herbs and lemon slices. Mix kosher salt with egg white (so when it bakes, it hardens into a crust) spread salt mixture thickly over fish until completely covered. Bake. When done, crack the salt crust with spoon or hammer and serve fish on plate with sauce (I like Lemon-Dill Beurre Blanc). Here is a link to recipe I use
http://www.finecooking.com/rec......aspx

Mrs Bissli ↓

Sun, Jun 02 2013, 9:36 am

OP, what kind of fish do you have? Best way to cook salmon is not the same as the best way to cook seabass or mackerel, etc...

Also I must say I would be rather careful about the salt encrusted/salt bake fish. It looks quite impressive, and making the salt cover is not that hard. The problem is, when I made one, the salt crust collapsed and got all over the fish when I tried to fillet the fish to serve. In the end, it was too salty and I wasted a good seabass.

greenfire

Sun, Jun 02 2013, 10:34 am

I used to make whole porgies in a frying pan ... they're small enough for single portions ...

and I stuffed the insides with spinach & potatoes - maybe mushrooms - oozing out ... or something like that ... can hardly recall as it was for the dxh - but he liked it ...

↑ Mrs Bissli ↓

Sun, Jun 02 2013, 10:34 am

For a whole salmon, I would line a large baking dish with foil or parchment paper, stuff quartered onions, and cover the fish with generous amount of chopped dill, pepper and salt. You can add 1-2 tbsp of dry white wine, cover with foil and bake at 170C for 45min (depends largely on size, check for doneness after about 30-40min). You can make separate sauce with mayo, a tablespoon or so of liquid from the cooking, mustard (pref grainy), lemon juice and more chopped dill.

Or you can do either BBQ (dab BBQ sauce on top, let it marinate an hour or so minimum and bake), or teriyaki (I usually use 2 parts OJ and 1 part soysauce, or equal part OJ, sake, and soy sauce).

↑ Mrs Bissli

Mon, Jun 10 2013, 5:27 am

Snapper? YUM!

I would probably first ask the fishmonger to scale and remove the guts, but keep the head and tail intact.
Wash well, scrub the cavity with quartered lemon and sprinke some salt and pepper.

For seasoning, you can use
- chopped garlic, parsley and rosemary, salt and pepper.
First line an oven proof casserole with sliced onions, chopped celery, maybe thickly sliced potato.
Place the fish on top, cover the above seasoning. Add 1/2 cup dry white wine. Let marinate for an hour
or so ideally. Bake at a fairly high oven (I would use 180-190C) using the golden rule (10min per an
inch of thickness). Nice and clean taste
- make a rub with chopped garlic, paprika and a tablepoon or so of oil. You can either bake as above
or have it BBQ.
- another delish marinade is chopped corriander leaves, 1/4 onions, 1/2 small chili pepper (remove
seeds), juice and rind of 1 lemon, salt and oil (you can whizz the whole thing in a food processor/
hand held chopper).
- you can just do plain BBQ the whole fish. BBQ seasoning, Hawajj, crab seasoning like Old Bay or
salt/pepper/cumin/paprika/garlic.