26th January 2014

Sea bass fillet, fennel, sweet potato and crab sauce

By MaitreMarcel

Sea bass is a very pleasant fish. It has a delicate tasty white meat that needs hardly any seasoning, it has a nice bite and is not flaky as some other fish such as cod or coley. It is not cheap, especially when it is not farmed or fished in nets but by angling lines. I saw a nice one on the market, the price was affordable and took it home.
I often prepare bass in a salt crust or in aluminium foil in the oven. Now I decided to prepare filets and use the rests of a swimming crab stock I had in the freezer. With it I presented a boiled fennel and some slices of sweet potato.
I peeled the sweet potato and cut some dark bits from the fennel bulb and put them apart in salted water and cooked for 30 minutes. I put the stock in another pan and put in on the fire to reduce.
The tricky thing was the filleting of the fish I first cut the fins off and removed the scales with a special de-scaler, then I used sharp and flexible knife to separate the flesh from the bones. I had planned to take off the skin as well but the fish was not very thick and I feared losing too much flesh.
I put some pepper, lemon juice and olive oil on the fish, wrapped it in cooking paper and put it away in an over at 175 ° C for 15 minutes.
After that, I took the fish from its wrapping and could easily remove the skin.
I presented it in a plate with the fennel, some slices of sweet potato and some spoonfuls of the swimming crab stock with some meat.