Recipes
When I want to stop a room, I bring out a whole fish in a salt crust and crack it open at the table. The crust comes away in slabs, the steam rises, the skin peels back and underneath is the most perfectly cooked fish anyone present has eaten. It looks like a chef's trick. It is one of the easiest things I cook.
The salt does two things. It seals the fish so it steams in its own moisture, and it seasons it from the outside in without ever making it salty, provided you get one thing right, which I will come to. Over a fire it works beautifully, because the crust protects the fish from the fierce heat of the embers and turns a bed of coals into an oven.
You want a whole, round fish with the skin on and the scales left on too. The scales are part of the barrier. Gutted, gills out, but otherwise intact.
For a 1.5kg fish you need about 2kg of coarse sea salt. Not table salt, which packs too tight and does not hold. Not flaky finishing salt, which is a waste of money. Coarse, cheap, from a big bag.
Mix the salt with two or three egg whites, beaten loosely, and a splash of water until it feels like damp sand that holds together when you squeeze it. This is the only bit that needs judgement. Too dry and the crust cracks and lets steam out; too wet and it never sets. You can add herbs to the salt if you like, thyme and lemon zest are good, but the fish will taste mostly of fish, which is the point.
You want a fire that has burned down to a deep bed of embers with no flames, and a moderate rather than fierce heat. If you hold your hand 12cm above the coals and can keep it there for four or five seconds, that is right.
Set the tray directly on the embers, or on a grate just above them, and rake some coals up around the sides. If you have a lid or a fire-safe dome, cover it; if not, the crust itself does most of the work. For a 1.5kg fish, cook for 25 to 30 minutes. The crust will harden and go golden at the edges.
To check, push a metal skewer through the crust into the thickest part of the fish, hold it there for five seconds, then touch it to your lip. If it is hot, the fish is done. A probe thermometer reading 55C in the same spot is the precise version.
The mistake everyone makes the first time is to break the crust with a knife and try to cut the fish through it. Do not. Crack the crust with the back of a spoon and lift it away in pieces. The skin comes off with it, and what is left is the cleanest, moistest fish you will ever serve.
- Cai
The thing that turns a salt-baked fish into something inedible is salt getting inside. It happens two ways: the fish was filleted or cut open beyond the gutting, so the salt touches flesh, or the crust was broken and salt fell into the cavity while serving. Keep the fish whole, keep the scales on, lift the crust away rather than cutting through it, and brush any loose salt off the skin before you peel it back. Do that and the flesh underneath will be perfectly seasoned and no more.
Peel the skin back, lift the fillets off the bone with a spoon, and dress with good olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and nothing else. Some charred lemon halves from the fire alongside, some ember-roasted potatoes, and you have a dinner people will photograph.
We do this at weddings on the asado table as one of the sharing centrepieces, and at workshops it is one of the dishes people are most surprised they can make. Try it at home first. It is hard to get wrong.
