This is my girlfriend’s favourite meal. She’s got pretty decent tastebuds, so I though this would be a great recipe to showcase. Crisp sea bass pairs perfectly with garlicky roast potatoes and sweet pea purée. The roast potatoes take some time to make there are quite a lot of process so it’s best to do this recipe when you’ve got time to relax.

If you are looking for a fancier meal that you can show off to your partner/your family but that isn’t very complicated, this is the dish for you. Nothing on this plate is difficult to make. The roast potatoes take some time but almost all of that time is spent waiting for them to cook in the oven.

The roast potatoes in this recipe are the best roasties I’ve ever made. And the ingredient which makes them so great? Flour! A sprinkling of plain flour over the potatoes before they go in the oven gives them such a crispy texture. Combine this with whole roast garlic cloves and you have a winner.

What makes this recipe a little bit difficult is getting everything ready at the same time. I usually make everything while the potatoes are cooking and then warm them up at the end while I cook the fish.

I hope you like this recipe!

Sea bass with pea purée and garlic roast potatoes

Servings: 2

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 1 1/2 hours

Ingredients

For the potatoes

• 300g of potatoes
• Vegetable oil
• 1 whole garlic bulb
• 1 tbsp of flour
• Salt and pepper

For the pea purée

• 200g of frozen peas
• Boiling water
• Seasoning
• A dash of cream
• A dash of lemon juice

For the bacon and pea garnish

• 3 slices of bacon
• 1/2 a red onion, finely diced
• 100g of peas
• Salt and pepper

For the sea bass

• 2 sea bass fillets
• Oil for cooking
• 1 tbsp butter
• Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Begin by heating the oven to 200 degrees (C). Fill a small baking dish with about 1cm of vegetable oil, then place in the oven till it is very hot.
2. Chop up the potatoes into chunks. Once chopped, place them into a pot of boiling water with a touch of salt. Cook them for about 6 minutes, or until a fork can pierce through the outside but they are still hard on the middle. Drain.
3. Once drained, mix the potatoes with 1tbsp of plain flour till they are all coated. This helps to give them a really crisp coating. Season them with salt and pepper, and then (carefully!) pour them into the baking dish with the hot oil.
4. Chop one whole bulb of garlic in half and place with the potatoes to roast. Add any seasonings you like, then place in the oven. Cook for 45-mins to 1 hour, making sure that you regularly check them and turn them when they begin to look crispy.
5. While the roasties cook, prepare the purée. Begin by boiling 200g of frozen peas according to the instructions on the packet. Once cooked, drain and place into a blender if you have one, or into a bowl to blitz with a stick blender (at a push these can be mashed with a fork, but it won’t be very smooth). Reserve a few peas to mix with your bacon and onions.
6. Add salt, pepper, a small dash of cream and a small dash of lemon juice to the peas, then blitz up until you have a silky smooth purée. For an even silkier texture, strain the mixture through a sieve, although you only need to do this if you really want to be fancy. Add more cream, seasoning and lemon juice if you prefer.
7. For the pea and bacon garnish, dice up half an onion and cook it on a medium heat. Once the onions are starting to colour, dice up 3 slices of bacon and add to the onions. Keep stirring and cooking until the onions and bacon are almost crisp. Finally, add some reserved cooked peas with salt and pepper and continue cooking until everything is cooked through. Put to one side.
8. Once the potatoes are almost cooked, add a little oil to a large frying pan and put it on a high heat. Once the oil has heated up to a high temperature, gently add the two sea bass fillets skin-side down (season them before hand). Using a fish slice, press down slightly to stop the fillets from curling. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until the skin is golden-brown and crispy.
9. While the fillets are cooking, warm all of the other components up. If you struggle to multitask, ask someone to watch over the fish.
10. Once the skin is golden-brown, turn the heat off, flip the fish and cook for one minute.
11. To serve, place the purée in a circle on the plate. Take the roast potatoes out and place them on one side of the plate. If you love roast garlic, place some of the garlic cloves that were cooking with the potatoes on the plate. Finally, add the peas and bacon and the sea bass fillets.

Tip: for an even more decadent dish, add a white wine sauce.

Want more fish recipes? Try my honey and mustard salmon, tuscan salmon or sardine and chilli spaghetti.