Baked Daurade

Baked daurade recipe

In Nice, you can often buy fresh small cleaned and scaled daurade, sea bream, in supermarkets. The following recipe is an easy and carefree way to cook daurade. Daurade is a tasty white fish, and like all seafood it is good for your heart.  It has very little fat so you can well use some heart-healthy fat, like olive oil, in the sauce. Olive oil, garlic and Piment d’Espelette give this recipe a nice twist from the French Basque Country.

2 servings

  • 2 cleaned and scaled daurade, about 300 g each
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 large cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp Piment d’Espelette (mild chilli powder)
  • Lemon slices to serve

Preheat the oven to 200 ⁰ C.
Make cuts all the way along the daurades and place them in a large oiled baking tin. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp olive oil and bake in the oven for about 20- 25 minutes.
Meanwhile peel and slice the garlic cloves. Gently heat 2 tbsp olive oil, the garlic slices and the Piment d’Espelette in a small sauce casserole until the garlic is golden brown.  Set aside when ready and take the daurades from the oven.  Pour the olive oil sauce over the fish, and serve with lemon slices.

I like to serve daurade with steamed new potatoes and wilted spinach or green lentils and roasted cherry tomatoes, as in the picture. Green lentils need about 30 minutes cooking. I prefer the small Puy lentils for the taste and texture. Cherry tomatoes are roasted in about 10 minutes. Pour 1 tbsp olive oil in a small baking dish, add the cherry tomatoes and swirl the dish so that the tomatoes are coated with the olive oil. Place in the oven together with the fish when 10 minutes of the cooking time remains.


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