Sea bream " a la Spetsiota"

SEA BREAM "A LA SPETSIOTA"

For this dish I use fresh or frozen sea bream.

This dish is appropriate for formal gatherings.

It is beautiful served on a platter, decorated with different colors of chopped vegetables.

Ingredients

1 sea bream 1.5 kilo

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 large dry onions

4 large carrots

3 medium potatoes

6 small or medium size zucchini

A few sprigs of celery

300 g. prepared or homemade mayonnaise

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon powdered mustard or regular mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

Soup

50 grams of rice for soup

The juice of one lemon

3 sprigs of rosemary

1 piece of hot red chili pepper in the size of a watermelon seed

Instructions

First recipe

Clean the vegetables and put them in a bowl with water.

Scour the fish from the scales and offal.

Put in an oblong casserole 2 liters of water.

Cut each onion into four pieces.

Pour the onions into the casserole.

Place the casserole over high heat and wait for the water to boil.

Cut the zucchini in half, carrots in cylindrical pieces 3 cm long and potatoes into 4 pieces each.

Pour the onions into the casserole.

Let the onions boil for three minutes and then pour the potatoes, the carrots, the celery, the zucchini and 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Add analogous salt and pepper.

Let the vegetables cook until tender.

Remove them with a slotted spoon and put them on a platter.

Place the fish whole in the casserole.

If the fish is longer than the casserole, cut it in two pieces.

 Boil the fish about 15 minutes.

Take care not to over boil it because it will dissolve.

Doff it carefully, so as not to dissolve completely and put it on a griddle.

 Put it aside to cool

Keep the broth of fish to make the soup.

Carefully remove the skin and the bones of the fish leaving its flesh completely clean from any of this.

Be very careful not to leave any bone buried in the mass of the fish.

Put the cleaned fish in a bowl.

Put salt, little pepper, coriander and mustard powder on the fish.

Mix everything with a fork gently.

Drain half cups of fish broth and add it into the bowl with the cleaned fish.

Pour into the bowl the juice of one lemon, 1 tablespoon olive oil and 3-4 tablespoons of mayonnaise.

Mix gently with a fork, until you achieve a uniform mixture.

Try the taste of the fish mixture.

If it is too dry, add a little more drained broth.

Correct salt and lemon, adding more if necessary.

Place the fish mixture in an oblong serving platter and give to it the shape of a fish.

Cover all the surface of the fish that you made with a thin layer of mayonnaise.

Your fish will seem to have mayonnaise skin.

Stick to the head of your fish two small slices of carrot, instead of eyes.

Make the tail of the fish fork.

Use half of the vegetables boiled in the beginning, to decorate the fish.
Put the other half of the vegetables into the soup.

Cut cooked zucchini into small pieces and put them on the fish over the mayonnaise as scales.

With vegetables also form the side fins of the fish.

Second recipe

 You can prepare the fish in another way too.

Buy bream and wash it well.

Smear it with oil, as a whole, without cleaning it.

Wrap it well in grease-proof paper and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for one hour.

Purge from the bones, intestines and skin.

Put the cleaned fish in a bowl and continue as above.

Garnish the fish with pickled vegetables.

Soup

You can accompany the fish with soup or to offer it alone.

When you want to offer soup with the fish, you must make it.

Get a clean pot and strain within the broth of fish.

This is necessary to remove any small fish bones that can be found in the broth.

Put the pot over medium heat and wait for the broth to boil again.

Rinse the rice and pour it into the broth.

Stir with a ladle and leave it to boil for 10 minutes.

When the rice is tender, pour into the pot the cooked vegetables that are not used in the decoration of the fish.

Boil with rice three minutes.

Stir to avoid sticking.

Pour into the pot a little salt, little red pepper, a sprig of rosemary.

Pour the juice of one lemon.

Try the taste and if it is right turn of the heat.

If you want, you can knock the soup in a food processor and make it a homogenous batter.

This recipe makes 5-6 soup plates and it is enough for 5-6 people.

The snapper is not always accompanied by soup.

At banquets it is served as a dish without fish soup.