Bream baked in salt
Bream baked in salt, and served with a sauce made of olive oil, lemon, oregano and mustard is a light and tasty dish for your lunch or dinner. A simple, quick and excellent way to cook fish.
Ingredients
Serves 2
- 1 bream of about 350 gr
- coarse salt
for the sauce
- 4-5 tablespoons olive oil
- 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/2 onion
- oregano
- mustard
- salt and pepper
Preparation
Place the bream on a cutting board and cut with a sharp knife along the abdomen of the fish into the flesh to open it up. Start just behind the gills to just above the tail.
Scrape out the guts and discard.
Do not remove the scales of the fish, otherwise it will absorb the salt.
Wash the fish under cold water to clean and remove any traces of blood and dry it with paper towels.
Cover the bottom of a baking dish with coarse salt to make a bed, about 6 mm thick. Place the fish on top of salt, and cover it with a layer of salt.
Close the fish belly so that when you cover it with salt, the salt will not get inside.
Bake in preheated oven, at 180 °C (360° F) for 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of the fish. If your fish is bigger cook for 10 more minutes.
While fish is cooking prepare the sauce. Pour in a small bowl oil, lemon juice, finely chopped onion, salt, enough to season the fish, pepper, a few drops of mustard, some oregano and whisk to emulsify.
Let fish rest for 5 minutes after removing from oven. Start breaking the crust around the fish shape with the point of a knife.
Do not go too deeply with the knife because we do not want to damage the fish. Then, gently try to make a small hole on the top and continue to enlarge the hole step by step until you can see that you can lift pieces of crust away.
Pull skin from top of the fish, and carefully lift top fillet from bones and transfer to serving plate. Then lift off the head and bone and remove the rest of skin.
Drizzle the fish with sauce. If you leave the fish for some time in the sauce, before serving, it will be more tasty. However you can also serve immediately.
You can serve at the temperature you like, this is a dish you can serve cold too.