Baked Bream with Potatoes Under an Onion Coat

Name: Baked Bream with Potatoes Under an Onion Coat
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 3 servings
Ingredients: Bream – 1 pc. Potatoes – 8-9 pcs. Onion – 1 pc. Sour cream – 2 tbsp. Mayonnaise – 2 tbsp. Ground black pepper – 1 pinch. Ground paprika – to taste. Salt to taste.

Published: 05.09.2026

Updated: 05.09.2026

🤤 Здорові рецепти щодня

Cooking time 60 minutes Portions 3 servings

The onion coat goes on here not at the start, but at minute thirty — and that's the whole recipe. Added right away, the mixture of sour cream, mayonnaise and paprika would dry into a crust over the forty minutes; added midway, it has time to soften the onion and stay a sauce.

The cuts are made across the backbone. The source recipe suggests vertical cuts along it — that's not worth doing: the bream's intermuscular bones run parallel to the backbone, and a lengthwise cut passes between them. And another thing: the cuts don't soften the bones, they cut them into short segments — these are different mechanisms, and the second one only works with a crosswise cut.

The potatoes lie around the fish, not under it. Bream is flat, and on a bed of potatoes it would rise above the baking tray — the top would dry out before the bottom side finished.

Drop the onion layer and you get bream baked in layers with vegetables. The same trick holds on a smaller fish too — baked crucian carp with potatoes in sour cream bakes the same way.

Caloric content: 125kcal

Ingredients

Bream – 1 pc.
Potatoes – 8-9 pcs.
Onion – 1 pc.
Sour cream – 2 tbsp.
Mayonnaise – 2 tbsp.
Ground black pepper – 1 pinch.
Ground paprika – to taste.
Salt to taste.

Preparing the fish

Gut the bream, remove the scales and gills, and rinse it. Make crosswise cuts down to the backbone and rub the carcass with salt inside and out.

Cutting the potatoes

Peel the potatoes and cut them into medium-thick slices.

Salting the potatoes

Salt the slices to taste.

Placing on the baking tray

Place the fish on a dry baking tray and arrange the potatoes around it.

Into the oven and cutting the onion

Put the tray in the oven at 190 °C. While it's in there, peel and cut the onion into half-rings.

Mixing the coat

In a deep bowl, combine the sour cream, mayonnaise, ground paprika and pepper.

Adding the onion

Add the onion to the mixture and stir well.

Taking out the tray

After about thirty minutes, carefully take the tray out of the oven.

Spreading the coat

Spread the onion mixture over the fish.

Finishing

Return the bream with the vegetables to the oven for another ten minutes, until the onion softens.

Notes

The cuts go across, and they don't soften the bones. The source recipe is wrong twice: the direction should be crosswise, and the mechanism is cutting, not softening.
The onion coat goes on at minute thirty. From the first minute it would simply dry into a crust and stop being a sauce.
The potatoes go around the fish, not under it. A flat carcass on a bed of potatoes dries out on top before it finishes underneath.
The paprika here is for color. Sour cream with mayonnaise gives a white coat, and without paprika the dish looks boiled even when it's done.
The last ten minutes are for the onion. The fish is already done by then; the extra time is only needed for the onion in the coat to soften.

Questions and Answers

How long to bake bream with potatoes?

Forty minutes at 190 °C: thirty before the onion coat and another ten after it.

When to add the onion coat?

Thirty minutes after baking starts. Added earlier, it dries into a crust.

Should the cuts run lengthwise or crosswise?

Crosswise, across the backbone. The bream's bones run lengthwise, and a lengthwise cut doesn't cross them.

Do the bones soften in the oven?

No. The cuts slice them into short segments, and that's exactly why they stop being a problem.

Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.