Healthy and tasty, fish is often considered too difficult to cook.
Many love it, but just as many don't really know where to start to prepare it. For this reason, the December appointment with Cucina In-cubo is dedicated precisely to the 3 most common mistakes of those who are about to cook fish, in this case in the oven. Ready to discover them?
1. The wrong cooking
Would you ever have said that? The most common mistake when preparing baked fish is doing it wrong. Many underestimate the importance of baking the fish when the oven is already at the right temperature, which is 180-200° for about 25-30 minutes per kilo of weight .
A secret? Cooking time increases by at least a third if you cook with salt. To understand if your fish is ready to taste, just look at the eye : if it has become white and opaque, you can remove it from the oven.
Still not sure sure?
You can slightly lift a flap of the belly to see that the inside is cooked and the meat is no longer translucent, or take it out of the oven and cut into the side of the fish to check that there is no more blood near the central bone.
2. Improper cleaning
Cleaning our fish correctly is really essential to obtain a great result (but without scales!).
If you don't know where to start, follow these steps and you can't go wrong:
- Using a pair of scissors, first remove all the fins to avoid pricking yourself while handling the fish.
- scrape it with the smooth file of a not too sharp knife or with the appropriate fish scaler, moving from the tail towards the head. To avoid spreading scales everywhere, cover the sink with newspaper and work on the bottom, so you will also avoid clogging the drain with the flakes.
- Open the belly of the fish with a knife being careful to stop before reaching the head, to avoid causing your fish to lose its shape. Then, remove the insides using a piece of baking paper to get a firmer grip. The leftovers? ZAC, one scissor strike and they will disappear. Last step: rinse the inside of your fish well under water.
SUPER TIP:
Never scale the fish if you want to cook it in salt or on the grill to avoid it acquiring too much flavor or sticking to your beloved barbecue.
3. Boiling
If you don't want to look like a boiled fish when you bring your sea bream to the table, it's better to be careful of the danger of "boiling"!
During cooking, in fact, the fish releases liquids which risk making it take on the boiled consistency of an 80s diet.
To avoid this unpleasant detox effect, you can adopt ingenious solutions
- Make sure the oven is always hot , around 200°.
- Choose cooking with salt , which will help drain and absorb excess moisture.
- Arrange your fish on a bed of potatoes , which will absorb the juices of the fish and also make a delicious side dish.
SUPER TIP:
A blast of the ventilated oven in the last minutes of cooking will give the skin of your fish a pleasant crunchiness.
Become a Fish Master
Now that you know the three most common mistakes and their solutions for cooking delicious baked fish, you may want to find out more and move on to the Master level.
The Master Fish takes place on Saturday and lasts 5 hours , starting from 9:00. The morning starts early together with our chef and your adventure companions, with whom you will go in search of the best seasonal pieces at the market in Via Fauché, the fishmonger and the supermarket.
After shopping, we return to the kitchen to understand how to best clean, prepare and use the fish , then cook it all together and end the working day with a rich lunch.
