Oven-Baked Sea Bream (Dorada)
Ingredients
2 servings
- Sea bream (0.5 kg each) 2
- Tomatoes 2
- Garlic 1 clove
- Olive oil 70 ml
- Onion 1
- Spices: sea salt, black peppercorns and allspice berries, dried aromatic herbs, bay leaves to taste
- Lemon, parsley for garnish
Step-by-step recipe
Preparing the fish
Thaw the sea bream. Don’t try to thaw it “quickly,” especially in the microwave. It’s better to move the fish from the freezer to the fridge the evening before — by morning it will be ready to cook.
Thaw it in a sealed bag, otherwise the scales dry on and are hard to remove. Incidentally, this was the first time I took a close look at the golden spot on the head that gives the fish its name.
Carefully scale the fish without cutting off the fins and tail. Slit the belly with a sharp knife and gut it. There’s quite a lot of fat inside a sea bream — remove it. Remove the gills, but leave the head on.
Using kitchen shears and a knife, cut out the backbone and the large bones. How to do it without filleting the fish is explained in “To Get It Right” below.
Make 3–4 crosswise or diagonal slashes about 10 mm deep on each side. This helps the fish absorb the salt and keeps it from curling up as it bakes.
Grind the spices in a mortar: a third of a teaspoon each of mixed peppercorns, coriander seeds and dried aromatic herbs, ½ tsp sea salt (3 g) and 2–3 allspice berries. I don’t insist on this exact mix — it’s up to you. Sprinkle the spices inside the fish and a little over the skin, and leave it for about 15 minutes while the onion fries.
Onion filling
Peel the onion and slice it into rings. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil (about 30–35 ml) in a frying pan and fry the onion until golden. You can cover the pan and fry it over low heat, stirring often — the onion will come out sweet.
Stuff the belly of each sea bream with the fried onion, spreading it in an even layer. Tuck a bay leaf inside each fish.
Baking
Lightly grease the bottom of a baking dish, lay a sheet of parchment on it and grease that lightly too — no more than 1 tsp of oil in all.
Slice one tomato into rounds 4–5 mm thick, lay them on the parchment in a single layer and salt lightly. This is less for flavor than to keep the fish from sticking to the dish.
Lay the fish on the tomatoes. Finely grate the garlic and rub it lightly over the fish, without leaving clumps. Brush the whole surface of the fish with the rest of the olive oil (about 1 tbsp), without missing any spots.
Cut the second tomato into wedges and tuck them into the gaps between the fish.
Put the dish into an oven preheated to 200–210°C and bake for 30 minutes. Then check for doneness: in the thickest part near the head the flesh is white, opaque and comes away from the bone easily. If not, give it 5 more minutes.
Carefully transfer the fish to a plate so it doesn’t fall apart, and add the baked tomato wedges and a little parsley. If you like, drizzle with lemon juice — it really improves the flavor. Serve hot, straight from the oven.
Calories and macros
570 kcal
Serving ≈ 340 g
- Protein48 g34% of kcal
- Fat38 g60% of kcal
- Carbs8 g5% of kcal
100 g168 kcalProtein 14 gFat 11 gCarbs 2.2 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
To Get It Right
How long to bake sea bream
The baking time for sea bream depends on the size of the fish. At 200–210°C:
- 300–350 g — about 20 minutes;
- 450–550 g — 30 minutes, as in this recipe;
- 700–800 g — 35–40 minutes.
A fish with the backbone removed and slashed sides cooks faster than a whole one. If you bake it whole, with the backbone, add 5 minutes.
How to tell the fish is done
- the sea bream flesh near the head, in the thickest part, is white and flakes easily with a fork;
- the eye has turned white and opaque;
- the dorsal fin pulls out without effort.
How to remove the backbone without filleting
Working through the belly opening of the sea bream, snip the backbone with shears at the head and at the tail. Then run a sharp knife along the ribs on both sides from the inside, freeing the flesh, and lift out the backbone together with the ribs. Don’t cut through the skin on the back — the fish stays whole.
If it doesn’t work out, bake the fish with the backbone: add 5 minutes, and after baking the backbone lifts out in one piece, bones and all.
For a golden skin
- pat the sea bream dry with a paper towel before seasoning — wet skin won’t brown;
- coat the skin with oil completely, without missing spots;
- don’t cover it with foil: under foil the fish steams and comes out watery;
- if your oven has a grill, switch it on for the last 3–5 minutes.
A marinade instead of dry spices
For a sea bream marinade, mix 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, a grated garlic clove and dried herbs, rub the fish inside and out and leave for 15–20 minutes. No longer: lemon juice starts to “cook” the flesh and makes it mushy.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Questions and answers
Do you need to scale sea bream before baking?
Yes, if you bake it as in this recipe — the skin is eaten with the fish. It’s left unscaled only for baking in a salt crust, where the skin is removed before serving.
Do you need to remove the gills?
Yes, definitely — they make the fish bitter. You can leave the head on; the fish looks nicer that way.
Can you bake sea bream fillets?
Yes, but they need much less time: bake skin-on fillets, skin side down, for 10–12 minutes at 200°C.