French · Main
Loup de Mer
Whole sea bass baked in an aromatic salt shell and cracked open at the table — maximum theatre, near-zero fat, impossible to overcook if timed
- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
- Whole sea bass, gutted through the gills, scales ON — 1 (1.6–1.8 kg)
- Coarse sea salt — 2 kg
- Egg whites — 4 (120 g)
- Fennel fronds and slices — 60 g
- Lemon, sliced — 1
- Thyme — 6 sprigs
- Fennel seeds, crushed — 4 g
- Extra virgin olive oil — 60 ml
- Lemon juice — 20 ml
- Espelette pepper — 0.5 g
Method
- Oven to 220 °C. Stuff the cavity with fennel, lemon slices and thyme.
- Mix salt with egg whites and fennel seeds until it holds like wet sand.
- Bed 1 cm of salt on a tray, lay the fish on, and pack the rest over, sealing completely (leave the tail exposed as a doneness window).
- Bake 25–28 min for a 1.7 kg fish — rule of thumb 15 min per kg plus 2 min; probe through the crust: core 54 °C.
- Rest 8 min in the crust.
- Crack the crust at the table, brush away salt, peel back skin and lift the fillets off the bone.
- Dress with olive oil, lemon juice and Espelette.