Salt-Crusted Sea Bream with Fennel

📝 Ingredients

• 2 gilt-head sea bream, gutted but not scaled (about 600 g each)
• 2 kg coarse salt
• 4 egg whites
• 2 lemons (1 sliced for stuffing, 1 in wedges for serving)
• 10 g fresh thyme (5 g for stuffing, 5 g for the vegetables)
• 2 fennel bulbs (about 300 g each)
• 1 kg small potatoes (baby potatoes)
• 3 tbsp olive oil (2 for the vegetables, 1 for serving)
• 3 garlic cloves
• Salt, black pepper

🍴 Utensils

• 2 baking trays and baking paper
• Large mixing bowl
• Metal skewer
• Pastry brush
• Wide spatula

📖 Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 210 °C. Wash the potatoes and halve them. Cut off the fennel stalks, keeping the green fronds, then cut each bulb into 8 wedges, leaving a little of the base on so they hold together.
2. Toss the potatoes and fennel on a baking tray with 2 tbsp olive oil, the garlic cloves crushed in their skins, 5 g picked thyme leaves, salt and pepper. Roast for 15 min on the bottom shelf.
3. Meanwhile, rinse the sea bream and pat them thoroughly dry. Fill the belly of each one with lemon slices, thyme sprigs and fennel fronds, then season the inside with pepper. Don't scale them: the scales protect the flesh from the salt.
4. In a large mixing bowl, mix the coarse salt with the lightly beaten egg whites until it has the texture of wet sand that holds together when you squeeze it in your hand.
5. Spread a 1 cm layer of this salt on a baking tray lined with baking paper, lay the sea bream side by side on top, then cover them completely with the rest, pressing it down with your hands: nothing should poke out, or the steam will escape and the flesh will dry out.
6. Put the sea bream in the oven on the middle shelf for 25 min, giving the vegetables a stir at the same time. At the end, push a skewer through the crust into the thickest part of the fish for 10 s: when you pull it out, it should feel hot against the back of your hand.
7. Take everything out and let the sea bream rest for 5 min. Bring the tray to the table, crack the crust with the back of a tablespoon, lift it off in large pieces and brush away the remaining salt.
8. Peel off the skin and scales, pulling from the head end, then lift off the fillets with a spatula, easing them away from the backbone, and turn the fish over to lift off the remaining fillets. Serve with the roasted vegetables, a drizzle of olive oil and the lemon wedges.