Oven-Baked Sea Bass
One of my favorite home-cooked fish dishes is dorado or sea bass baked in the oven. It’s a kind of “everyday” dish that doesn’t need much preparation. Sea bass is especially quick and easy to cook in the evening after work. All you need to do in the morning is prepare the fish, which takes literally 5-10 mins, and in the evening just put the baking tray in the oven. If you like, you can also fry some vegetables for a side dish.
The fish we call sea bass is more often sold as branzino (its Italian name) or European seabass, also known as lavrak or sea wolf in some countries. The term “sea bass” is more common in restaurants. By the way, this fish is widely farmed, because wild fishing is either banned or heavily restricted. It is a predator and has almost no enemies in the water.
Well-baked sea bass is a portion-sized fish with very few bones. The tender, juicy flesh bakes and fries equally well: in foil, in leaves or, the most unusual way, in a salt crust. They say a sauce is enough to serve with baked fish like this, but for a proper dinner sea bass is tastier with vegetables: you can add baked vegetables or potatoes boiled in chunks.
Sea bass in the oven cooks thanks to dry heat. Usually, to get a crust or a nice golden color, the fish is brushed with a little fat before baking. The sea bass sold in stores is almost certainly farmed. As a rule, the fish are small and perfect for cooking by the portion: one fish per serving.
Baked sea bass is incredibly tasty if you first rub the flesh with spices so the fish gets dry-marinated, and then serve it with lemon after cooking.
Sea bass is very easy to scale and there is very little waste. The flesh is quite firm and doesn’t fall apart when you handle it. Often, especially in popular cafes and restaurants in coastal areas, baked fish is served without any side dish at all. As an exception, a lemon slice or a few drops of balsamic vinegar and sugar sauce is added to the plate.
A fish dish: oven-baked sea bass with a side of fried vegetables.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Fish
- Sea bass (250–300 g each) 2
- Salt 0.5 tsp
(3 g) - Allspice 3–4 peas
- Cloves 1–2 buds
- Sweet paprika 0.5 tsp
- Herbes de Provence 0.5 tsp
- Vegetable oil for the dish and for brushing
- Side dish
- Parsnip, carrot, sweet pepper for the side dish
- Hot pepper 1
- Garlic 2–3 cloves
- Olive oil 2–3 tbsp
- Salt a pinch
- For serving
- Lemon, parsley optional
Step-by-step recipe
Preparing the sea bass
Wash the fish and scale it. It scales very easily, even with an ordinary knife, and not a trace of scales is left.
Rinse the fish under cold water and gut it, cutting the belly open all the way up to the gill covers.
Remove the gills and scrape out the inside cavity with your fingers. Pat the fish dry with paper towels and transfer to a plate.
Usually the main flavor of baked fish comes from the spices it’s cooked with. We wanted our sea bass to be aromatic and slightly spicy.
In a mortar, grind 3–4 allspice peas, 1–2 clove buds, and 0.5 tsp each of sweet paprika, salt and a dry mix of herbes de Provence (basil, thyme, oregano, savory, etc.).
Sift the mixture through a tea strainer.
Make shallow cuts in the sides of the fish, literally 5 mm deep: 4–5 cuts along the whole length.
Rub the fish with the spice mixture, working it into the cuts and the inside cavity.
Cover the plate with the fish with plastic wrap and put it in the cold for 1 hour.
Fried vegetable side dish
You can start the side dish while the fish is baking. Usually, when I bake fish, we serve it without a side dish. As my family says, they just want the fish. But fried vegetables never hurt.
Prepare the vegetables for the side dish. Carrot, celery root and parsnip all work well. We didn’t add onion, sticking to a large bell pepper.
Peel the hot pepper and cut it into thick strips. Peel a few cloves of garlic and crush them.
For frying the vegetables use vegetable oil, preferably olive oil flavored with hot pepper and garlic.
Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan and fry the garlic and pepper in it. Once the garlic starts to darken, remove it from the oil. You can leave the pepper in, or transfer it to a saucer and use it to garnish the finished dish.
Peel the carrot and parsnip, then dice them a bit bigger than the vegetables for Olivier salad. Peel the bell pepper and cut it into the same size cubes or slightly bigger.
Add the carrot and parsnip to the hot oil. Fry the vegetables over medium heat without covering the saucepan. Gradually the vegetables will soften and start to brown a little.
Salt the vegetables with a pinch of salt and add all the chopped bell pepper. Keep frying the vegetable mixture until the pepper is soft. How far you fry the pepper is up to you.
Take the finished side dish off the heat and transfer it to plates.
Baking the sea bass in the oven
The fish bakes well on a clay or ceramic platter brushed with vegetable oil. To keep the fish from sticking during baking, you can lay very thin lemon slices on the bottom and put the fish on top.
Brush the fish with a little vegetable oil, using a silicone brush. To keep the tail fin from burning, it’s best to wrap it in a small piece of foil.
Preheat the oven to 180–190 °C and put the fish in. Sea bass bakes in 30–40 mins, including the time it takes for the fish to heat up. It cooks quickly, and you can check that it’s done by making a small cut in the fish with a knife inside the cavity near the backbone. If you give it a little more time, the skin will start to turn lightly golden.
Put the fish on a plate with the vegetable side dish. If you like, add a few sprigs of parsley and the strips of fried hot pepper you set aside earlier. Be sure to add a lemon wedge: baked fish goes too well with lemon to ignore it.
Baked sea bass with fried vegetables is served right away, while the fish is still hot. It’s an elegant fish dish with a delicate flavor. The side dish is slightly spicy, right on the edge of perception, and together with the baked fish it makes a main course. Enjoy your meal!
Calories and macros
300 kcal
Serving ≈ 130 g
- Protein26 g35% of kcal
- Fat20 g61% of kcal
- Carbs3 g3% of kcal
100 g232 kcalProtein 20 gFat 15.6 gCarbs 2 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
To Get It Right
How to choose sea bass
Small sea bass are sold in supermarkets not frozen but “chilled”. When buying, pay attention to any dents in the fish, the condition and color of the gills, and the scales. Fish of 250–300 g are just right for one per serving.
Prepare it in the morning
You can clean the fish and rub it with spices in the morning, which takes literally 5–10 minutes. The fish will rest under plastic wrap in the fridge, and in the evening all you have to do is put it in the oven.
What to serve with it
Baked fish is often served with no side dish at all, just a lemon slice or a few drops of balsamic vinegar and sugar sauce. For a hearty dinner, baked vegetables or potatoes boiled in chunks go well with sea bass.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Fish scaler with lidAliExpress
Fish bone tweezersAliExpress
Kitchen probe thermometerAliExpress
Pull chopper for garlic and onionAliExpress
Oil sprayerAliExpress
Kitchen scale up to 5 kgAliExpressQuestions and answers
How long do you bake sea bass in the oven?
Fish of 250–300 g take 30–40 minutes at 180–190 °C, including the time for the fish to heat up. To check if it’s done, make a cut with a knife inside the cavity near the backbone.
How do you bake sea bass in foil?
Prepare the fish the same way, rub it with spices, put a couple of lemon slices in the cavity and wrap each fish tightly in foil. Bake at 180–190 °C for about 25–30 minutes, opening the foil for the last 10 minutes so the skin browns.
How do you cook sea bass fillets in the oven?
Rub the fillets with the same spice mix, place them skin side down in an oiled dish and bake at 180–190 °C for 15–20 minutes. Fillets cook faster than a whole fish.
What else is sea bass called?
Lavrak or sea wolf, and branzino in Italy. The name “sea bass” comes from English and is more common in restaurants.
What does sea bass taste like?
The flesh is very tasty and juicy, and quite firm, so it doesn’t fall apart when you prepare it, and it bakes and fries equally well. There are almost no bones.