Best way to cook Sea Bass?

~Chameleon~

It turned out to be very easy indeed - the fish were already de-scaled :rotfl:

I decided to use one of Rick Stein's recipes - Baked Whole Sea Bass (with roasted red peppers, tomatoes, anchovies and potatoes) - and it was a mighty success! :drool:

My fish were somewhat on the small side though (Tesco farmed fish grrrrr) and weighed only 300g each so I cooked one fish per person. But from reading up about them I gather a proper fresh caught Sea Bass can weigh anything from a kilo upwards, hence why one fish usually serves 3-4 people.

Can I ask how such a fish is usually divided up when feeding several people?

I'm a real novice at cooking fish, and this is my first taste of Sea Bass (I assume a "proper one" would taste even better!) although we are trying to incorporate more fish into our diets these days

gingerchick

Don't want to make you too jealous but my husband came home last week with a 10lb seabass!:T

He often goes fishing on the beach and has brought seabass, cod and mackerel home, but this one was his biggest catch ever.

He filleted it into 8 pieces, but they are very large pieces!
It freezes really well also.

We actually had some tonight, he cooked it in the oven with some pepper, spicey seasoning mixed with flour coated onto it, and it is just gorgeous.

~Chameleon~

gingerchick wrote: »

Don't want to make you too jealous but my husband came home last week with a 10lb seabass!:T

Wow!!!!!! :eek: jealous???? you bet lol

odds-n-sods

You generally fillet it - cut it off the spine. Much easier to portion a sea bass after its been cooked, it lifts off the bones easily.

Lift the skin off the top fillet. Lift the fillet off the spine with a spatula or egg lifter or palette knife. the peel off the spine and you should be able to lift the bottom fillet off its skin. If it won't lift off easily the fish isn't cooked enough! But don't overcook it, either.

To do it raw:
1 gutted fish
1 very sharp boning /filleting knife
1 towel

For Right-handed people:
Take ahold of the fish's tail with your left hand, using the towel to cover your hand. Lay the knife at the tail end, pointing towards the head. Hold the knife almost but not quite flat and parralel to the spine. Cut along the spine of the fish - as you cut you should be able to feel the knife rubbing against the spine vertebrae. Try not to cut into the spine, just use it as a guide. Once you've gotten to the head, make a downward cut right behind the gills from the skin to the spine. Turn the fish over and repeat.

To skin a fish:
Lay the fillet skin-side down on the cutting board. Hold the very end of the fillet using a towel in your left hand. Lay the knife at the tail end, almost parralel to the cutting board, but not quite, and begin to cut in between the skin and the flesh. Pull with your left hand on the skin as you cut to keep pressure on the skin - this will almost pull the fish onto the knife and make skinning the fish very easy. You should have no skin or only the brown part of the flesh on the skin when you have done this right.

Sallys_Savings

gingerchick wrote: »

Don't want to make you too jealous but my husband came home last week with a 10lb seabass!:T

He often goes fishing on the beach and has brought seabass, cod and mackerel home, but this one was his biggest catch ever.

He filleted it into 8 pieces, but they are very large pieces!
It freezes really well also.

We actually had some tonight, he cooked it in the oven with some pepper, spicey seasoning mixed with flour coated onto it, and it is just gorgeous.

mmmmmmmm delicious.

Everytime we have fish one of my children will mention how we used to catch mackeral off the beach on holiday and eat it on the bbq and how scrummy it was.......mmm I can almost taste it.

I am really envious.

~Chameleon~

odds-n-sods wrote: »

You generally fillet it - cut it off the spine. Much easier to portion a sea bass after its been cooked, it lifts off the bones easily.

Thanks for that, pretty obvious when you think about it lol

I did notice that it seemed much easier to separate the flesh from bones than when we had rainbow trout last week, and we didn't seem to be forever fishing (ha!) bones out of every mouthful too

Now I've tried it I'd really like to get hold of a proper big freshly caught one as I'd imagine it would have far more flavour than these piddly little farmed ones. It didn't cross my mind when buying them, but I should have known better than to buy fresh fish from Mr T I guess :rolleyes:

odds-n-sods

Wild sea bass is expensive, tho. MY DH bought one, it was £11. And ther is the envirnment to think about too. That'a why most restaurant fish is farmed to help keep the wild stocks going. They say we wont' have any fish in 50 years if we keep overfishing the way we are.

Jolanta_Nowak

I'm looking for a good recipe for sea bass - one which hopefully someone has already used successfully.

Any help please?

emmaroids

just dab in seasoned flour and pan fry it.

simple ftw.

gingin_2

stuff the cavity with fresh herbs and a knob of butter and seasoning, make a parcel of tinfoil around it and bake in the oven for 20 minutes (for a small bass for one person), I also put a splash of white wine on it if I have any spare.