Mediterranean Baked Snapper
Cooking whole fish doesn't need to be daunting. This is an easy recipe with a tonne of flavour. I used snapper which is a popular fish. It is a pretty lean and moist with firm texture. If you can't get snapper, ask your fishmonger to recommend a good substitute.
Ingredients
- 3 small whole snapper fish, cleaned, scaled and gutted
- 8 pinch large garlic cloves, minced and combined with aof salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 tablespoons parsley, dried or fresh
- salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 red capsicums, sliced
- 5 yellow squash, roughly chopped
- 1 large onion, sliced into rounds
- olive oil
- 2 Lemons, juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220 degrees celsius.
- Pat the fish dry. With a large knife, make two slits on each side of the fish.
- In a large bowl, add the squash, onion, capsicum, juice from one lemon, and garlic. Toss together to mix. With 1/3 of mixture, insert this into the gut cavity of each fish .
- To make the spice mix, combine the cumin, parsley, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Use the spice mix to season the snapper on both sides by patting the spices onto the fish and pushing into the slits made earlier.
- Place the stuffed fish into a lightly oiled baking tray. Add the remaining 2/3 of mixture to form a frame around the fish. Sprinkle the vegetables with a pinch of salt and the remaining spice mix.
- Drizzle everything generously with olive oil.
- Place the baking sheet on the lower rack of your oven. Roast for 20-25 minutes or until the fish flakes off the bone.
- Transfer the fish to a serving platter and squeeze juice of one lemon all over it.
Notes
- To make things easy, you’ll want to get your fishmonger to clean and gut the whole snapper. Also, if you prefer, you can choose to have the head removed.
- Other vegetables you can use in this meal include chopped eggplant, tomatoes and courgettes.
- Try different herbs and spices as you like - including dill, coriander and cumin. Serve the fish with wedges of lemon and a side of rice or couscous.