Fish In Sea Salt
By: Barnaby Dorfman
Published: Friday, December 10, 2010 - 1:02am

Ingredients




1 whole Bass
2 pounds Sea Salt
1 large bunch Fresh Herbs

Preparation

1 Ask your fishmonger to scale and gut the fish then all you have to do is stuff the betty cavity with fresh fragrant herbs and lemon slices. 2 Stuff the fish using a selection of your favorite fresh herbs, such as basil fat leaf parsley, fennel, dill, cilantro, or bay. 3 Take an appropriately sized baking tray and lay baking foil over it allowing an extra couple inches to hang over each side. Sprinkle a thick layer of coarse sea salt on the bottom. You can buy large bags of coarse sea salt in supermarkets. 4 Place your whole stuffed fish on top of the salt (I always make sure that there are enough herbs hanging/bulging out of the belly cavity to stop the salt getting in). 5 Sprinkle another thick layer of salt on top of the fish. 6 Then just crumple up the excess foil and push down between the salt and the tray (this basically just hugs the fish at the sides and saves you having to use too much salt). 7 Drizzle a little water over the top of the salt to help make a crust. Bake in the middle of the oven at its highest temperature for 10 minutes per pound. 8 After baking allow to rest for 15 minutes (the fish will carry on gently cooking) then gently break and remove the salt; be careful not to pierce the skin of the fish as you will make the flesh salty. 9 After exposing the lovely steaming fish simply place it in the middle of the table with some fresh bread crisp green salad boiled potatoes and two or three dips.

About


Fish cooked this way is so quick and easy, sociable to eat, and most importantly tastes luscious. The fish retains all its natural moisture and juices and just seems to melt away from the bone; it does not as you would imagine taste salty at all.
You can also use red mullet, sea bream, salmon, turbot, or trout. If you are cooking wild salmon you might want to under-cook it slightly to appreciate its clean and natural taste. To do this, Simply reduce the cooking time by 2 minutes per pound.