One tray, one oven, twenty minutes. The fish takes a sharp, oily marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, sweet paprika, garlic and lemon zest, and the vegetables around it get only oil, salt and pepper, because their job is to roast in the fish drippings. Everything goes in cold together and comes out at the same time, which is exactly why it works for a weeknight.
Spanish · Main
Whole Baked Sea Bass With Lemon, Cherry Tomatoes and Olives
A scored whole sea bass sits in a paprika and lemon marinade surrounded by tomatoes, shallots and black olives, and everything roasts together at 200 C for twenty minutes on one tray.
- Prep20 min
- Cook20 min
- Serves2
- LevelEasy
Ingredients
| 1 | whole sea bass , scored on both sides |
| 2 | lemons , one sliced, half a lemon juiced, a little zest grated |
| 200 g | cherry tomatoes , halved |
| 150 g | small onions , cut into wedges |
| 10 | black olives |
| 60 g | olive oil |
| 1 tbsp | sweet paprika |
| 1 tbsp | dried parsley |
| 3 cloves | garlic , minced |
| to taste | salt |
| to taste | cracked black pepper |
Method
- Cut the lemons: slices from one, juice from half of the other, and grate a little zest.
- Halve the tomatoes, wedge the onions and open the olives.
- Toss the vegetables with a splash of the olive oil, salt and black pepper and set them aside.
- Make the fish marinade: stir together the remaining olive oil, the half-lemon juice, the paprika, the parsley, the garlic and the lemon zest.
- Score the fish, rub it with salt and black pepper, then spread the marinade all over and into the cuts.
- Lay the fish in a baking dish and pile the dressed vegetables around it.
- Bake at 200 C for 20 minutes.
- Scatter fresh parsley over the tray and finish with a last drizzle of olive oil.
Notes
- Score the flesh to the bone. A whole fish bakes unevenly, and the cuts let the marinade reach the thickest part.
- Halve or quarter the tomatoes so they collapse into the pan juices instead of staying raw next to the fish.
Ratios and technique checked against 青柠食记 on Douguo (西班牙柠檬烤鱼). The method here is written by Stellaok; the photograph is the source kitchen's, credited on the image above and linked back to the page it came from. No recipe text is reproduced.