Baked market fish with lemon, salt & dill

I don’t like gourmet cooking or ‘this’ cooking or ‘that’ cooking. I like good cooking.
~ James Beard

I went to City Market with Luke on Sunday and we came home victorious with: fresh fish from Rachel at Yellow Brick Road, delicious cranberry & pistachio chocolate from Annette at Esque Chocolate, and a heady bulb of fennel from a bustling vege stall. What a treat on a greeeey Sunday morning!

Baked market fish with lemon, salt & dill

Ingredients:
For the fish:
2 snapper fish
2 lemons
dill
salt
pepper
olive oil

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Line a baking tray with foil, and grease it lightly.

Zest 1 lemon, and cut both lemons into quarters. Put 4 lemon quarters aside. Wash the fish, and make 2-3 shallow, diagonal cuts on both sides of them. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil and lemon juice over the fish, sprinkle on salt, dill and lemon zest, and rub them in gently. Repeat above steps on the other side of the fish.

Bake the fish for 23 minutes, or until they are cooked. They should be a little milky and the aroma that hits you in the face upon the oven door opening should cause smiling dizziness.

Serve with remaining lemon wedges (for the fish), braised fennel, and a glass of ice-cold wine. Don’t forget to eat the fish cheeks too…

Conclude with strong black coffee and a bit of dark chocolate.

The fish was so fresh, it would honestly have tasted wonderful even on its own. Lightly scented with lemon, salt and dill though, it was perfect. It was also really great to just eat a whole fish again! Fennel is still pretty new territory for me, but I like it more each time I eat it – the aniseed flavour of it tiptoes around my senses in a very pleasing way.

Recipe for fish inspired by Rachel :-) – fennel recipe borrowed from Orangette (except I didn’t read it properly, and missed the browning step!)