Roasted Sea Bream with Potatoes and Olives

I think out of all the fish that are ocean farmed the Dorade or gilt head sea bream is the best of all. There are not many places that will be able to boast serving wild fish but if you do come across one then buy it, you will enjoy the finest fish in the sea that I have so far come across. Treat it simply and enjoy the seaweed like taste of the skin and the firm rich white, slightly oily flesh. I was telling my great friend John Susman who is the seafood guru in Australia how good these fish were.  After taking him around the morning auction at Brixham and missing out on buying a small one that I intended to cook for our lunch we went to Dartmouth to see my mate Nick Hutchins, the best crab fishermen in Devon. We popped into the local fishmonger first and to my disbelief there were 2 fish at least a kilo each that had been caught off Plymouth that morning.  What a treat, that’s the thing about shopping for fish you just never know what’s there, its wonderful. We bought one of them, picked a up a monster crab from Nick straight out of the water, and cooked the fish just a little thyme and olive oil – it was amazing and John agreed. In fact John was speechless. This recipe is great because you get all the flavours of the fish going into the waxy potatoes and its dead easy because you cook it an serve it in one pot.

Fishmonger preparation

Scale and gutted

You will need – Serves 4

3 or 4 waxy potatoes like Maris piper or Charlotte – peeled and finely sliced

I red pepper

1 head garlic

1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

2 Sea Bream about 450 g / 1lb each

Handful black olives

200 ml / 7 fl oz olive oil plus a little for drlzzling on the peppers

6 tinned tomatoes or very ripe fresh ones, skinned and de-seeded

1 dried birds-eye chilli

Handful of fresh coarse breadcrumbs doused in a bit of olive oil

½ lemon 

salt

To Make

Preheat the oven to 250c.

Boil some water and then blanch the potatoes for 2-4 minutes then drain and dry. 

Roast the pepper and garlic cloves by placing on a roasting tray, drizzling with oil and a little salt then putting them in the oven for about 12 – 14 minutes, remove the head of garlic and roast the pepper for a further 5 or so minutes until is soft and blackened, place it into a plastic bag that has no holes and tie up the top and leave it to cool. 

Break the heads of garlic down into cloves but leave the skins on and deseed and peel the pepper, reserve any juices, these are delicious.   

Pour some olive oil into a dish large enough to take the fish then lay the potatoes in the oil. Sprinkle with some salt and the thyme leaves. Rub the fish with a little olive oil and some salt  then lay the fish on top of the potatoes and place the dish in a hot oven for about 12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and place the garlic and olives around the fish then squeeze the tomatoes onto the potatoes and tear up the pepper into rough strips and place around the fish, pour on the reserved juice from the peppers  than crumble over the chilli and sprinkle over the breadcrumbs, place the tray back in the oven for a further 7 or 8 minutes. 

To serve this dish put a fish on each plate, finish with a squeeze of lemon and sprinkle some parsley over the potatoes before serving, the potatoes will have taken on the all the flavours of the fish, garlic, tomatoes and peppers and will be absolutely delicious, the crispy breadcrumbs add another great texture.