Sea bass with fermented chilli
- Preparation and cooking time
- Total time
- + fermenting + marinating
- Easy
- Serves 4
- 4 sea bass fillets
- 200ml fish stock
FERMENTED CHILLIES
- 250g red and green chilliescut in half and deseeded
- 3 tbsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- a squeeze lemon juice
MARINADE
- 100g red chillieshalved and deseeded
- 6 cloves garlic
- 200ml oil
- 2 lemonzested
- 100g fermented bean curd
- kcal402
- fat30.5g
- saturates5.4g
- carbs1g
- sugars0.5g
- fibre0.2g
- protein31g
- salt0.4g
Method
step 1
Make the fermented chillies by putting the red and green chillies into a bowl. Sprinkle over 1 tbsp of salt and leave for 3 hours, then rinse under cold water. Heat 250ml of water in a small pan with the remaining 2 tbsp of salt, until the salt has dissolved. Pour into a jug with 250ml of cold water. Put the rinsed chillies in a jar and pour over enough brine to cover, ensuring they’re fully submerged. Leave to ferment in the fridge for 2-3 weeks (see details below or read our expert guide to fermenting here).
step 2
Put all of the marinade ingredients into a food processor and whizz until smooth. Pour into a container with the sea bass and marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours but preferably overnight.
step 3
Put the fish stock into a small pan and gently reduce until you have 50ml of intense fish stock.
step 4
Heat the oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. Scrape off most of the marinade from the fish, add the fillets to a roasting tray and cook for 10 minutes.
step 5
Remove 3 chilli halves of each colour from the brine and finely chop. Heat the oil in 2 small pans and fry separately until heated through. Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice.
step 6
Serve the sea bass with the two colours of fermented chilli down two halves of the fillets and some of the fish stock spooned around.