#AdventCalendar Day 22: Seabass in Crust of Bread

Ingredients (serves 4 people):

• a small seabass for each person (around 300 grams each);
• olive oil;
• white pepper;
• 4 small oranges (remember what we said about bitter oranges when we baked Anne Boleyn’s favourite pie);
• 3 spoonfuls of rosewater.

For the pastry:

• 300 grams of flour;
• 100 grams of butter;
• two pinches of salt;
• water.

Recipe:

Pour the flour on a wooden plank in the shape of a volcano, as usual, cut the butter in small pieces making sure you don’t warm it with your hands and add it to the flour with a pinch of salt and then slowly incorporate enough water to create a smooth and even dough. Let it rest in the fridge for about two hours.

Meanwhile, clean the fish by removing the innards and the scales, wipe them dry with a cloth and place them in a pan with olive oil, salt and pepper. Squeeze two of the oranges and water the fish with their juice, then cook them ten minutes on a lively fire until their skin has a golden shade.

On a work surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin to a thickness of 2-3 millimetres and cut 4 pieces wide enough to wrap each fish. Make sure their tail peeks out of the pastry and leave an opening around the mouth. The more this wrapping looks like a fish, the better. Place the wrapped fish back in the pan with olive oil and the squeezed juice of the other two oranges. Bake them in the oven at a temperature of 180 °C for around half an hour until the dough is golden. When the cooking is done, sprinkle everything with the rosewater.

A similar recipe, without the dough, features orange and cinnamon: you can find it here.