Roasted European Sea Bass (Branzino)

This was my first attempt cooking a whole fish! I’ve wanted to roast a whole fish for some time but was intimidated. I thought the process would be complicated, but it’s also a lot easier if you ask your local fishmonger to scale and gut the fish for you. If you are up for the challenge of cleaning the fish yourself, I commend you! (Maybe I’ll give it a try another time). My first attempt working with a whole, cleaned fish was super easy and this successful experience gave me a lot of confidence to do so more often. Not only was it easy, but it was also really satisfying to serve something that looked and tasted amazing. I love the presentation of a whole cooked fish as the centre-piece of the dinner table. With great fresh fish, simple ingredients are a great way to go.

Sea bass (aka Branzino or Loup de Mer) is a lean, delicate white fish that can be pan-fried, grilled, roasted, wrapped and baked or cooked on the barbecue.

Here is a simple recipe for roasted sea bass, starting with a scaled and cleaned fish.

Beautiful fresh Branzino aka European sea bass aka Loup de Mer (en français) ready for the oven.

Recipe

Serves 2

Preparation time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 15 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Ingredients

• 1 x 800-g sea bass, scaled and cleaned

• Olive oil, for brushing

• 2 garlic cloves, chopped

• 1 lemon (half sliced, the other half for juice)

• 1 rosemary sprig or dried rosemary

• 1/2 onion

• 1 tbsp butter (optional)

• salt and pepper

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 450ºF

• Line a baking sheet with foil, parchment or wax paper. Place fish on the lined baking sheet. Brush fish with olive oil and season inside and outside of the cavity with salt (you can use quite a bit) and pepper. Put the garlic, slices of lemon, rosemary sprig and some of the onion inside the cavity. Place the remaining onion and butter on top of the fish.

• Bake for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven. Drizzle with lemon juice and more olive oil (optional). Serve immediately, straight from the baking sheet, if you like.

Let me know if you try this recipe or modifications to it!