Salt Baked Sea Bass with a Fennel and Pear Salad, and a Chilli, Lime and Coriander Dressing

If I am ever at home on a Saturday morning then one of my guilty pleasures is the BBC’s Saturday kitchen. They have some fantastic chef’s on there, great programmes and some really inspirational dishes. We actually had a weekend to ourselves last week and we discovered a fantastic fresh fish mongers just a couple a miles up the road in Kingswood (can you imagine how excited I was!) They had these delicious looking line-caught Cornish Seabass which we could not say no to; and I then remember this sea bass recipe from Saturday Kitchen, which was simply baked in salt. Sometimes when you get a really great piece of fish the flavours alone speaks for themselves, and this is such a great way to cook fish as it brings out all those awesome natural flavours. I honestly could not rave about it enough! It was succulent, juicy and so incredibly tasty! Infact, I believe Sam may have uttered the sentence ‘this is the best fish I have ever eaten!’

Serves 2

For the Sea Bass

-          2 small Sea bass – scaled and gutted

-          150ml egg whites

-          600g salt

For the Salad

-          1 fennel bulb – out leaves removed and finely slices

-          1 pear – peeled and finely sliced

-          Juice ½ lime

-          ½ tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

For the Dressing

-          1 red chilli – finely chopped

-          Juice of 1 large lime

-          Handful Coriander – finely chopped

-         Optional Extras – Asparagus and roasted baby new potatoes

Preheat the oven to 200’C

Mix together the salt and the egg whites so that it resembles the consistency of sand.

Lay the sea bass in a baking tin and coat each one with the salt mixture so that they are both completely covered.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until the salt mixture is hard and turning golden.

Remove from the oven and leave to cook for a minute or so before cracking the salt coating and removing it from the fish.

While the fish is cooking, make the salad by combining all the ingredients in a bowl and coating well.

Make the dressing by simply mixing together the ingredients.

Plate the fish with the salad and drizzle over some of the dressing. I also served mine with little roasted new potatoes and asparagus, which were great to dip in the remaining dressing.

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