Juicy bream with lemon in the oven

Bream smells of silt more strongly than any other fish of ours — that is not a sign of a fish gone off but the taste of the water it feeds in, down near the bottom. That is exactly why almost every bream recipe has acid in it: lemon, mustard or vinegar take that note away better than any spice.

Here the acid works twice. Lemon wedges are pushed into slashes along the side, so that they release their juice straight into the meat instead of letting it run off onto the tray — and wholegrain mustard goes into the sour cream coating on top. That coating also holds the moisture in: under it the fish does not dry out, and inside it finishes cooking in the steam from the onion and dill in the belly.

Twenty-five minutes at 180–190 °C is not long, and that is deliberate: bream is a lean fish and turns dry if it is overcooked. If the small bones are a nuisance, the same fish is better cooked stuffed — there they are put through the mincer into the filling.

The same bream is boned and filled in stuffed bream in the oven, or left as it is in whole baked bream in the oven.

Caloric content: 165kcal

Notes

• The slashes go down to the meat but not to the backbone. Their job is to let the lemon inside and let the heat through to the thick part; a cut all the way through will simply break the fish apart when you move it.
• Cut the onion into thick half-rings. Thin ones will disappear over twenty-five minutes, and here the onion has to stay a stuffing that is eaten together with the fish.
• The mustard must be the wholegrain kind. Ordinary table mustard dissolves in the sour cream and gives an even heat, while the grains stay whole and work as a seasoning with every bite.
• Take the foil off ten minutes before the end. Without that the fish will be cooked properly but pale: there is no browning under foil.
• Pack the belly firmly, but do not overfill it. The stuffing swells with the steam, and an overfilled belly will split along the cut.
• Scale it thoroughly. Bream scales are small and tough, and on a baked fish scales left half-removed turn to grit under the knife.

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