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Bills brilliant new book. Baked Sea Bass and lemon roast potatoes


We got Bills new book 'Feed me now' at work to provide inspiration for some of the projects we're working on.
It looked so good I decided to pinch it and take it home to try out some of the recipes. I think he's a bit like Jamie in that he has a really good sense of what normal people like to eat but delivers it in surprising ways that are still very easy to prepare.
This recipe is a perfect case in point, on the surface it's just fish with oven roast potatoes but there are lots of clever little things going on that take the dish to another level.
Joe, Lisa and I devoured this on Saturday night. As always with whole fish you have to balance out the fabulous taste versus the whole bone thing. If you dont like bones or staring fish in the face I'm sure you could also do this with fillets just adjusting the cooking time to about 15mins ..ish.
For what its worth we also tried one Sea Bass and one Sea bream and the consensus was that the Bream had it by a short fishy head.

2x 750g Sea Bass or Sea bream, cleaned and dried
10 spring onions
handful coriander
1 mild red chilli deseeded
4tbs extra virgin olive oil
sea salt

Lemon-roasted potatoes

750g waxy potatoes (I used charlotte), unpeeled,cut into thick slices
Juice of 1 lemon
125ml Fish stock
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2tbs olive oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C. Place all ingredients for potatoes in a bowl and toss until potatoes are coated in the mixture. Spread on a baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes turning regularly.
After you have put the potatoes in the oven blend the spring onions, coriander, chilli and olive oil into a paste.
Score two to three deep cuts in each side of the fish at the thickest part. Rub the outside of the fish with the paste
Turn oven down to 180C
Place a little oil oil in a non-stick baking tray and lay the fish on top. Put in the oven with the potatoes (potatoes in the top half of the oven)Bake for 20-25 minutes.
By this time the fish will be cooked and the potatoes should be a lovely and brown and a little bit 'sticky'
Serve


Alternative

When looking this recipe up on the web I saw an alternative version that featured a fennel chilli relish which sounded good too.
Instead of the onion, coriander paste you put fennel tops and lemon slices in the fish and just brush them with olive oil and some salt.
Then you serve the fennel relish on the side

For the fish

2 fennel tops, sliced
1 lemon, finely sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
freshly ground black pepper

Fennel chilli relish

1 fennel bulb, finely chopped to 5mm dice
2 red chillies, finely chopped
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Place all ingredients in a bowl and combine.
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