Little is more spectacular than a really good sea bass. Though the modern recipe calls for olive oil, Venetians traditionally used butter instead. To serve 4:
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
- 4 small (4/5 pound, or 350 g) sea bass, scaled and cleaned
- A bunch of parsley
- 2 6-inch (15 cm) sprigs fresh rosemary
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 4 tablespoons olive oil or unsalted butter
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preparation:
Preheat your oven to 400 F (200 C)Rinse the fish well and pat them dry. Make three diagonal cuts on each side of the fish, and season them inside and out with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Rinse the parsley, pat it dry, and remove the leaves from the stems, which you can discard. Remove the needles from the sprigs of rosemary too. Mince the parsley leaves and rosemary needles, and season the fish with the herbs, inside and out.
Arrange the fish in a baking dish, sprinkle the wine and olive oil or butter over them, and roast them until done, 15-20 minutes; should they look to be drying out, add a little more wine.
Serve them at once. In terms of a wine, white, and I might go with a Soave.
