Sea Bass Baked with Capers and Green Garlic Butter

⏳ Time

50 minutes

🥕 Ingredients

🍽️ Servings

Description

From one whole fish, you get a serving for one person. Green garlic butter is always in my freezer and is a versatile addition to beef steaks, chicken fillets, fish, and even baguettes for breakfast. The recipe for making this butter is in my next recipe.

Ingredients

Sea Bass - 1 piece
Garlic - to taste
Pickled capers - 1.1 oz
Meyer Lemon Juice - 2 tablespoons
Ground Black Pepper - to taste
Lemon-Pepper Mix - to taste

Step by Step guide

Step 1

If you're lucky and the sea bass is already gutted and chilled, then you're in for a treat! You just need to cook it. But if, like mine, it's whole and frozen, you first need to thaw it (the day before cooking in the refrigerator on the bottom shelf), and then carefully gut it without damaging the gallbladder, otherwise, the fish will taste very bitter. Gutting the fish is quite easy — place it in a deep bowl or at least in the kitchen sink, make an incision on the belly (you'll find it near the lower fins closest to the fish's tail), and carefully make a longitudinal cut on the belly until you hit the bones of the fish's head with your knife. After that, I put on a plastic bag or a disposable glove on the hand I'm using to remove the insides and gently but firmly pull out the contents; the gallbladder is located right near the head, is yellow-green in color, and is the hardest to remove, but with a bit of force, you can get it out too. After this, rinse the fish under running water and place it in a baking dish. There's no need to scale it; it will cook perfectly, and you won't even notice the scales.

Step 2

Drizzle the sea bass with lemon juice, sprinkle with ground black pepper and lemon pepper. Do not salt! Sea fish should not be salted before baking, as it has already absorbed the necessary amount of salt during its short life.

Step 3

Place the dish in a preheated oven at 392°F for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the dish, place the capers on the sea bass and in the dish, add pieces of garlic butter on top of the fish, and bake for another 10 minutes, after which check for doneness by piercing the thickest part of the fish with a toothpick — clear juice should come out or nothing at all.

Step 4

Transfer the fish to a serving plate, place the capers from the dish on top, and drizzle with the melted garlic butter that has pooled in the dish. I usually do not serve any side dish with the fish, except perhaps for some salad leaves.