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Categories:Viewed: 50 - Published at: 6 years ago
Ingredients
- One 3-pound sea bass, gilled, gutted, and scaled, with head left on or removed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 garlic cloves, cut into very thin slivers
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 lemon, thinly sliced
- 20 fresh oregano or marjoram sprigs or 1 teaspoon dried
- 8 small onions, peeled and cut in half
- 1 cup dry white wine or fish, chicken, or vegetable stock, preferably homemade (page 161, 160, or 162), or water, plus a little more if needed
- Black pepper to taste
Method
- Cut 3 or 4 gashes on each side of the fish, from top to bottom.
- Salt the gashes and salt the fishs cavity as well.
- Let it sit while you prepare the other ingredients.
- Preheat the oven to 450F.
- Push half of the garlic slivers into the gashes.
- Rub the fish with a little of the olive oil and pour the rest into the bottom of a large baking pan.
- Spread the lemon slices over the bottom of the pan and top it with most of the oregano.
- Lay the fish over all, then spread the onions and remaining garlic around the fish.
- Pour the wine over all and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Top with the remaining oregano.
- Cover with aluminum foil and bake, undisturbed, until the onions are nearly tender, 20 to 30 minutes.
- Uncover and continue to bake, shaking the pan occasionally, until the fish is cooked through, another 5 to 10 minutes (look at one of the gashes in the thickest part of the fish; the meat will appear opaque clear down to the central bone).
- If the pan is drying out, add a little more liquid.
- To serve, scoop the flesh from the fish with a spoon and top with some sauce.
- If the weathers good, and you have access to fennel branches, this is easier: Start by preheating a charcoal or gas grill; the fire should be quite hot and the grill rack about 4 inches from the heat source.
- Make a bed of fennel stalks directly on the grill bed.
- Sprinkle 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of sturdy fish fillets, like halibut (these may be steaks), striped bass, monkfish, or cod, with salt and cayenne.
- Grill right on the branches.
- While the fish is cooking, grind a teaspoon or more of fennel or dill seeds; juice 1 lemon and thinly slice another.
- When the fish is done, remove it from the grill, leaving as much of the stalks behind as possible (some of the burned fronds will adhere to the fish; this is fine).
- Sprinkle the fish with the fennel or dill seeds, then decorate it with the lemon slices.
- Drizzle with the lemon juice and a bit of olive oil and serve.
