Rockin' Sea Bass and Oven Potatos w/ Roasted Pine Nuts

Honestly, I've never been a fan of fish all my life. Approximately ten years ago from now, I lived in the countryside for a year. In that time my parents were in a small scale family tourism business. Tourists adored that small seaside town for it had a fame for clean sea and delicious fish - which brings me to the reason why I mention it all now. The only fish I've ever enjoyingly eaten was cooked in that place, my then home. We had a stone barbecue out in garden. My dad always seemed to be in charge at the barbecue. He was great at grilling meats, too.

Originally, mom bought the fish (sea bass) to oven grill herself. I was feeling up to a "challenge" to cook my first fish ever I guess, so I assured her she can sit back.

I planned to make a sauce out of: Olive oil, turmeric, thyme, black pepper, chopped garlic and salt. I smudged this sauce all over the fish generously; in & out. Next; cut onions in rings and chopped some dill to fill inside the fish with these. I had a feeling this was heading for a flavorful outcome.

I let the sauce start working into the flesh while I moved onto the next step I was to decide after finishing up with the fish - that is... cook something to do with potatos! Hmm.

Potatos... A-ha.

Since I was going to use the oven for the fish, I could as well cook the potato in oven. How? Using oven cooking bags.

I slice three medium sized potatos in round slices and fill the bag. Now what to include into the bag? Since the fish is supposed to be focused on I thought, I should go for a modest taste. Was I going to do that?

Mmm. Who knows. Well, pine nuts mom bought so we'd use in sweets in the cupboard... I was sooo tempted to use. Since the day is reserved for "first time ever" stuff, might as well use pine nuts in my dish too! Okay!

Naturally I go for roasting. So upon heating the pan, I throw in the nuts and also a tablespoonful of butter. Mm the smell... I keep stirring - I don't want them burned.

I can't help myself including fennel seeds yet again! I just can't - and this weakness leads to another discovery that fennel seeds release the flavor better lightly roasted. They got crunchy.

I put pine nuts on a small plate to cool down a bit - couldn't resist the mesmerizing smell so I snack on it while I was placing the fish into greasy oven paper. (Back to picture one for fish & potatos seperately placed on same oven tray ready to go into heated oven)

So I have the potatos in the oven cooking bag, a tablespoonful of olive oil, black cumin seeds, thyme. Also included were the pine nuts & fennel seeds. I grasped the bag from outside and let the ingredients mix well.

It was time for me to move onto letting oven do the rest - and mom was helpful making a big bowl of salad for us.



Cooking time must be 20 -25 minutes at 200 C degrees. Well... I don't keep track of these since there is always intuition you can rely on.

Focusing on potatos first:

Soft, loving the company of fennel seeds, black cumin seeds, thyme and oh... pine nuts for the most part. This potato dish itself could make a great dinner - I'll say that much. Wonders of oven cooking!

Now it's wise to focus on the fish - since rockstars always crave the attention. They might be too cool to admit it, yeah. Here is a close-up of my rockin' sea bass!

On the outside it was slightly crispy. I don't take much pleasure of the skin and head so my cat didn't mind helping me out. The flesh... it was so soft and moist merged with different flavors. I did enjoy fish after a long time.

Lastly, a picture of that tasty dinner. Normally we don't consume fish with pickles here! Pickle plates were already on the table when I included salad and dinner plate so the impatient me could take a quick picture before the euphoria would make me mad.

Enjoy !!!