Baked Sea Perch with Vegetables

Name: Baked Sea Perch in the Oven with Tomatoes and Onions
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Sea perch 2; Tomato 3-4; Garlic 1-2 cloves; Onion 2; Flour, Olive oil, Lemon, White wine to taste; Spices: salt, black and allspice peppercorns, ginger, nutmeg, bay leaf, coriander seeds to taste

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1 h 15 mins

For any “continental” angler, the kind who fishes rivers like the Dnieper, perch is a spiny, striped, spiteful monster, and one wrapped in real armor of tiny scales that only a court order could get off. If you know what it’s about, the curse “may you catch nothing but perch” sounds worse than “may you never see a bite”.

Sea perch, or rockfish (Sebastes), are fish too, but they are called perch more out of habit, because their body shape resembles the striped river fish. In anatomy and appearance, though, sea perch differ so much from river perch that they belong to different orders and families. Sea perch can be quite dangerous to handle because of their sharp, sometimes venomous, fin spines. Scaling a sea perch, on the other hand, is very easy.

About a hundred species of sea perch live all over the world, from cold waters to the equator. They vary in size and weight, are caught in large numbers, and you can buy them frozen almost anywhere.

The most popular one for us is Sebastes pinniger, the orange (canary) rockfish, also known as Canary (Orange) Rockfish. This is the fish you will most often find in a store.

The meat of this fish is very tasty and suits almost any kind of cooking: boiling, frying, stewing, smoking and so on. Sea perch baked in the oven goes with almost any side dish. The most important thing is to handle the fish carefully when cleaning it, because the fins are very sharp.

I know many recipes with sea perch, but the best dishes are whole fish, fried or baked. For example, baked sea perch in the oven.

Sea perch in the oven with tomatoes and onions is a great dinner dish, especially when you don’t have to go to work the next day. A whole baked fish always turns out well.

6 ingredientsTo the recipe

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Baked River Perch Fillet with Vegetables in the Oven

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Ingredients

2 servings

Sea perch 2
Tomato 3-4
Garlic 1-2 cloves
Onion 2
Flour, Olive oil, Lemon, White wine to taste
Spices: salt, black and allspice peppercorns, ginger, nutmeg, bay leaf, coriander seeds to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Ocean fish for baking usually comes frozen, so first thaw the perch. It is best not to thaw it at room temperature: just move the fish from the freezer to the fridge overnight, into the extra-cold zone that every modern fridge has.
In the morning, clean the perch. The first thing to do is cut off the dorsal and anal fins right down to the body with sharp scissors, so that not a single spine is left. Sometimes you can only do this with wire cutters, because it is simply impossible to cut through the first (thickest) spines with scissors! The tail fin can stay.
Scrape off the scales with a knife and rinse the fish. Slit the belly with scissors and gut it. If the perch still have their heads, cut them off and throw them away. Carefully remove the black membrane lining the belly cavity.
Put sea salt (or any salt), a few black peppercorns, allspice, coriander seeds, nutmeg and ginger in a mortar. Grind the spices with a pestle into a powder. You need about 1 tsp of the mixture. Adjust the proportions to taste.
Carefully sprinkle the fish with the spice mixture, especially thoroughly inside the belly cavity. Put the fish in a dish. Add 2-3 bay leaves and pour over 1-2 tbsp lemon juice. Pour in a glass of dry white wine. Leave to marinate for an hour. After an hour, turn the fish over in the marinade and leave it for another hour.
Prepare the vegetables.
Peel the onion and slice it into thin rings. Fry the onion in 2 tbsp olive oil until soft. When it turns golden, transfer it to a separate bowl.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and peel them. Slice the flesh into very thin slices.
Pick the leaves off the dill and parsley and chop them finely.
Take the fish out of the marinade and pat the carcasses lightly dry with a paper towel. Do not throw the marinade away.
Coat the fish in flour and put it in a well-heated frying pan with about a third of a cup of olive oil poured in beforehand. Fry the fish over high heat on both sides until a golden crust forms.
Then reduce the heat and fry for 5 minutes on each side. You can also cook it covered, over the lowest heat.
Divide all the prepared vegetables (tomato, fried onion, herbs) in half.
Grease a baking dish with olive oil. Spread half of the prepared tomatoes evenly over the bottom of the dish.
Sprinkle with parsley and dill.
Sprinkle the tomatoes with grated garlic.
Then add half of the fried onion. Season with one pinch of coarse salt, sea salt if you like. Add black pepper if you want. Add the bay leaves from the marinade.
Put the fried perch in the dish.
Cover the fish with all the remaining fried onion.
Sprinkle with the rest of the herbs.
Then add the tomatoes, making sure all the vegetables sit on top of the fish rather than beside it.
Add one pinch of salt, though if you don’t like salty food, you can skip it.
If there is any liquid left in the pan where you fried the fish, pour it over the fish in the baking dish. Also pour over the marinade left from marinating. Half a cup of liquid (100 ml) is enough.
Put the dish with the fish in an oven preheated to 240 °C.
The perch bakes in the oven for 35-40 minutes. Be sure to baste the fish regularly with the juices that collect in the dish. It is best to do it every 5-7 minutes so that the tomatoes on top of the fish don’t dry out.
If there is still some liquid in the dish when the time is up, no problem. It’s worse if the liquid boils away and the dish burns.
Put the finished fish on plates. Top with the tomatoes and onions and spoon over a little of the liquid from the dish.
Sea perch in the oven is served hot only. Whether you need a side dish is up to you. We prefer it simple: fish with vegetables. If you like, you can also squeeze lemon or lime juice over the fish.