Baked Sea Bream with Vegetables – Whole Dorado Recipe

Step-by-step recipe

1. Sea bream with vegetables is a great recipe for all kinds of diets. For example, dorado is very low in carbohydrates, and the fat content of its flesh is under 2% of the weight — practically none at all. The flesh is firm but tender, slightly pink, with a sweetish taste. It is somewhat reminiscent of a young carp or crucian carp.
   
2. Sea bream with vegetables is easy to cook — it's almost impossible to ruin the fish. The only trick: since the flesh is almost pure protein, you need to score the skin in several places before cooking, otherwise the fish will shrink and lose its shape.
   
3. First, fry the eggplants or zucchini. Nothing stops you from using both, for that matter. Very young zucchini don't need peeling. Slice them into 5 mm rounds and fry in olive oil until golden. Eggplants are better peeled — either completely or in stripes.
   
4. Fry the eggplant in olive oil. I suggest not frying it too hard: as soon as it starts to brown, transfer it to a separate dish right away. Pour the oil left in the pan into the same dish.
   
5. Bell peppers — preferably of different colours, purely for looks — wash them and remove the seeds and stems. Cut the peppers in half lengthwise. Slice the halves crosswise into thin strips.
   
6. Scald the tomatoes, remove the skin and seeds. Coarsely chop the flesh.
   
7. Celery and parsley — leaves only — finely chop and mix together.
8. Prepare the sea bream. First, scale it. The fish is easy to clean. You can leave the fins on. Slit the belly and remove the guts and gills. Rinse the fish under cold running water. Pat dry with a paper towel. With a sharp knife make several diagonal cuts on both sides of the fish, running from head to tail, no more than 1 cm deep. First, this way the fish takes up salt better, and second, it won't lose its shape while cooking.
   
9. Grind the spices to a powder in a mortar. For one fish I suggest a third of a teaspoon of sea salt, 2–3 black peppercorns and 2–3 allspice berries, a pinch each of ground ginger and nutmeg, and 1–2 pinches of a mix of dried aromatic herbs (basil, oregano, mint, sage, etc.).
   
10. Rub the ground spices over the fish, especially well inside and in the cuts.
11. Slice the lemon into very thin rounds. Insert half-rounds into the cuts on the sides. Put one or two rounds inside the belly of the sea bream.
12. Cut one peeled garlic clove into several pieces and place them inside the fish, including where the gills were.
13. Squeeze 1 tsp of lemon juice over the fish. Leave it to marinate briefly while you make the vegetable bed.
14. Lay the fried eggplant in a baking dish. Ideally it should cover the whole bottom of the dish. Keep the olive oil left from frying — you'll need it later.
    
15. Finely grate the remaining garlic over the eggplant. Sprinkle with half of the chopped herbs. You can add a little salt — just a tiny bit.
    
16. Lay the pepper strips on top. Sprinkle with the rest of the chopped herbs.
    
17. Spread the chopped tomato flesh over the peppers. You can add more tomatoes if you like — it's up to you.
    
18. Place the prepared fish on top of the vegetable bed. Drizzle the fish with the oil left from frying so that it bakes and doesn't burn. Add 2–3 bay leaves.
    
19. Pour 4–5 tbsp of white wine into the dish — dry or sweet, as you prefer.
20. Bake the fish in an oven preheated to 220 °C. The baking time is hard to pin down, since the fish and vegetables need time to heat through. I suggest this: 30–35 minutes from the moment the liquid in the dish starts to boil. That's enough for the fish to cook just right.
    
21. It's really important to baste the fish 2–3 times during cooking with the liquid that collects in the dish. Otherwise the sea bream will dry out.
22. Fish with vegetables — sea bream on a bed of vegetables — is served right in the dish it was baked in. Or you can transfer the fish to a large platter and arrange the vegetables around it.
    
23. Fish with vegetables is exceptionally good with chilled white wine.