Baked sea bream
( Orata al forno )

Baked sea bream recipe

Preparation

• - Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
  Clean sea breams eliminating their entrails and fins
  Then scale and fillet them.
  Prepare fresh herbs. I generally wash them and pat dry with absorbent kitchen paper. Then I cut herbs very finely with scissors. In this way I don't disperse any nutritional properties on the work surface chopping them and keep their fragrance. Put aromatic herbs apart.
  Line a baking dish with baking paper.
  Lay fish fillets on baking paper.
  Season with salt.
  Spray olive oil and wine. Normally I keep olive oil in a spray bottle. It's a trick that allows me to limit the amount of olive oil.

Cooking

• - Bake for less than 10 minutes.
  At this point, remove baking pan from the oven, sprinkle fish fillets with aromatic herbs and spray more olive oil. Put your pan in the oven again and cook for other 5 minutes.

Just before cooking

• - Transfer sea bream fillets in individual plates and serve at once.

Note

Tips

• - If you don't know how to fillet fresh fish, you can prepare the whole fish and cook it in the same way. The only things you have to remember is seasoning to taste with salt their cavities too. In this case brush or spray olive oil and wine also on baking paper too, not only on the outer surface of your fish.
  Increase cooking time depending on the size (for bream whose weight is 300 grams, it takes about 20-25 minutes) and remember to turn it over a few times too. After 15 minutes, sprinkle your fish with aromatic herbs (but keep a little aside), spray olive oil on both sides and bake again. Once cooked, remove their backbone and head and separate fillets. At this point sprinkle with other olive oil and remaining herbs and serve.
  Cooking the whole fish in oven definitely you'll use a greater amount of olive oil.
• - You can also use dried aromatic herbs instead of fresh ones.
• - If you fillet sea bream before cooking in the oven you can make a good fish broth with their head and bones. Just slice an onion and saute it together with head and bones in a tablespoon of olive oil. Cover with water and simmer for 20 minutes. You can then use your fish broth to make a good risotto or cook another fish. I keep it for a few weeks in the freezer when I can't use it right away.
• - Many people also use garlic as seasonings or grated cheese. Everyone has his own habits. In some regions of Italy, the combination of fish and cheese is the norm.

Menu planning

• - You can cook sea bream all year round. In fact you can buy fresh sea bream, farmed or caught, or frozen fish.
• - It's a recipe for your weekly family menu, ideal for your children.
• - Complete your meal with raw or cooked vegetables in season and a portion of bread. Or serve a vegetable soup before baked sea breams.

Healthy eating

• - My baked sea bream is a recipe with less than 300 calories but the fish portion is higher than recommended one. Moreover, sea bream has an average weight of 300 grams if not more. Its two fillets weight approximately 200 grams (7 ounces). Poor portion for two people and superabundant for one person. By controlling the seasoning of your side dish, however, you can respect the calories required for dinner
• - It's important to eat fish at least 2 or 3 times a week.
• - Fiber per serving: 0.4 grams

Loretta

What's the right wine for " Baked sea bream "?

My husband and I pair Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi (white wine from Marche - Italy) to baked sea bream.