Fresh sea bream marinated with pepper

Fresh sea bream fillets on a bed of bright green mesclun salad seasoned with vinaigrette and garnished with sautéed red peppers and fennel is a light and refreshing main course inspired by the flavors of the Mediterranean. The warm sea bream fillets and peppers and the cool and crisp salad greens make a pleasurable experience in the palate. Paired with a fine bottle of Chablis, fresh sea bream with peppers is a magnificent meal.

Sea bream has a mild taste that lends itself well to potent spices like fennel, which is often used to flavor fish in French and Mediterranean cooking. The subtly sweet and anise-like flavor of fennel is greatly enhanced when combined with sweet red peppers. Both have their distinct spice and sweetness that makes a lovely chemistry when cooked together.

Succulent and coarse at the same time, the white flesh of sea bream is ideal for baking, frying, or grilling. In this recipe, sea bream is cut into fillets and pan-fried in olive oil. If you want a less oily fish, however, you can also bake the sea bream in the oven, steam it in salted water, or grill it to give it a smoky flavor. Any of these cooking methods will go great with the cool and crisp salad, fennel, and peppers.

Sea bream has to be gutted, gilled, and scaled before it can be cooked and eaten. Their bodies are relatively flat so they make lean filets. If you have no experience in gutting and filleting fish, buy a whole fish in the market and let the fishmonger clean and filet the fish for you. This is better than buying frozen fish filets as fresh whole fish has more flavor. Lightly season the filets with salt and pepper while it is cooking in the pan to keep it moist and tender.