At the fish shop, whiting fillets were $50/kg, and the actual fish was $25/kg. I bought the fish with the intention of filleting them myself. I never quite got around to it.
I dug out my copy of the Silver Spoon for inspiration (alas, Stephanie failed me) and did the following.
Any change from the original sea bream recipe I have marked with an asterisk (*).
Grilled Whiting
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of one lemon, strained
Handful of fresh parsley
Whiting (or any firm white fish), cleaned*
Breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper
Method:
Mix together all ingredients except for the fish.
Marinate for at least 30 minutes*, in a plastic bag whilst you are preparing other bits of dinner.
Drain and reserve the marinade – I heated this in a small frypan so that I wasn’t mixing raw and cooked foods.*
Coat the fish with breadcrumbs, and place under grill.
*Chuck any leftover breadcrumb mixture from your plate into the cavity.
Baste the fish with the marinade for about 15 minutes, until the flesh flakes easily.
If the fish fins/tail start to get a bit burnt during the cooking, cover them with foil.
Verdict?
Yum and Wow. Usually when you squeeze lemon over fish, my poor deluded taste buds think that I’ve added salt.
The advantage of basting a breadcrumbed fish with the lemon marinade is that the breadcrumbs absorb the lemony flavour. You can really taste the freshness and lightness of the lemon. The breadcrumbs gave a lovely crispy crust.
Downsides?
I love a good whole fish.
But the bones along the back of the whiting really curbed my enjoyment. I just wanted to crunch the crust, but I had to keep picking bones out of my mouth.
I will definitely be using this recipe again!