Oven-Baked Sea Bream: Whole Dorado with Onion and Tomatoes
For some people, fish day may be Thursday or Friday. For us, it just worked out that way, it's usually Saturday evening. We bake dorado in the oven. It's the weekend, you can sleep an extra hour, and then, no matter what, you have to go to the store for groceries for the whole next week, or we'll be drinking water with lemon. As they say, there's no third option. The realities of modern city life…
That's why Saturday is a convenient day to cook fish. Fish dishes are tasty, nourishing and cook pretty quickly. Just what you need!
Today we made dorado. By the way, nobody has convinced me yet that it should be called dorada. This ocean fish, the gilt-head sea bream (Sparus aurata), took its name “dorado” from the Latin-derived d'oro, gold. It has a golden spot on its head between the eyes. And the word dorado itself means “golden” in Spanish. The legendary “land of gold” the Spanish conquistadors searched for was El Dorado. And there's a county in California with the same name, in the mountains near Lake Tahoe; I drove through it once. So why “dorada”??? Oh well. Whatever you call it, the fish stays the same.
Dorado is cooked in many ways. I have to admit, I've never had badly cooked dorado. It feels like it's impossible to ruin. But I'm convinced that the simpler the recipe and the simpler the cooking, the tastier the result.
It's very easy to cook dorado in the oven, just by plain baking, without any frills. Oven baking works with dry heat. The fish doesn't boil or stew in its own juices. Baking is also better for keeping the calories down, since ordinary pan-frying uses quite a lot of fat. Especially deep-frying. As for cooking dorado in foil, I find the fish comes out watery because of the steam trapped inside the foil; that method works better for mackerel.
A famous dish is dorado with vegetables, fish on a bed of vegetables. Simply exceptionally delicious fish. Or just grilled doradowith a citrus sauce, ideally lime. It's worth trying, and you'll love it.
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
- 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.
- By the way, it's best to thaw the fish 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 very spot on the head that gives the fish its name.
- Carefully scale the fish without cutting off the fins and tail. Gut it by slitting the belly with a sharp knife. There's quite a lot of fat inside a sea bream, and it needs to be removed. Remove the gills too, but leave the head on. Then, using kitchen shears and a knife, cut out the backbone and remove the large bones. Make 3-4 crosswise or diagonal slashes on each side of the fish. Not deep, 10 mm is enough. First, this helps the fish absorb the salt better. Second, it keeps the fish from curling up as it cooks.
- Grind the spices in a mortar. I recommend a third of a teaspoon each of mixed peppercorns, coriander seeds and dried aromatic herbs. Add ½ tsp sea salt and 2-3 allspice berries. Once ground, you'll have a fragrant spice mix for fish. I don't insist on this exact mix, though; it's up to you. Sprinkle the spices inside the fish and a little over the skin. Leave the fish to rest while the onion fries, about 15 minutes.
- 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 the onion over low heat, stirring fairly often. The onion will come out sweet and tasty.
- Stuff the belly of each sea bream with the fried onion, spreading it in an even layer. Tuck a bay leaf inside each fish.
- Grease the bottom of a baking dish with just a little vegetable oil and lay a sheet of parchment or baking paper on it. Brush the paper with vegetable oil so it's lightly greased. All in all, it should take up to 1 tsp of oil.
- Slice one tomato into rounds 4-5 mm thick. Lay the slices on the paper in a single layer. Strictly speaking, this isn't so much “for the recipe” as to keep the fish from sticking to the dish and the paper. Salt the tomato lightly.
- Lay the fish on top. Peel the garlic clove, grate it finely or crush it in a mortar, and lightly rub it over the fish, trying not to leave clumps. Brush the fish with the rest of the olive oil (about 1 tbsp should be left), without missing any spots, so the whole surface is coated with a film of oil.
- Cut the second tomato into wedges and tuck them into the gaps between the fish.
- Put the dish with the fish into an oven preheated to 200-210°C. Bake for 30 minutes. Then check whether the fish is done, and if needed, give it more time. But half an hour is usually plenty.
- Carefully transfer the baked 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 this dish only hot, straight from the oven.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 134 |
| Prep: | 30 mins |
| Cook: | 30 mins |
| Total: | 1 h |
| Category: | Main Dishes |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.9
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