Roasted Salt Fish

I am going to wrap up my series of holiday posts with the roasted salt fish. This is a very typical dish in Spain that you can find at almost any beach destination or quality fish restaurant in the city.

It is a very simple dish to make. All you do is buy a whole fish (head, bones, and skin in tact), pack it in really fat sea salt, and roast for about 30 min at 400ºF. (The peaks of the salt with almost start to brown when it is ready.) Then you remove the salt and peel back the skin and fish will fall right off the bone. Be careful not to let the salt get in direct contact with the fleshy part of the fish because the salt is extremely potent.

I used red snapper but you can use any fish that has a thick skin. I made two for ten people and it just gave a taste for everyone. If this is going to be your main dish, I would recommend 2-3 people per fish. You can see below one fish still packed in salt on the left and one with the salt removed on the right.

This dish lacks presentation (plate is too big) but you get the idea of how flaky and tender the fish is. I accompanied the fish with roasted asapargus wrapped in prociutto.