Sea Bream Flan with Escarole and Taggiasca Olives

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This Sea Bream Flan with Escarole and Taggiasca Olives sprinkled with Toasted Pine Nuts is as beautiful to look at as it is tasty to try.

With the arrival of summer, the desire to bring fresh fish to my table grows day by day. Consumption of fresh fish is also perfect for maintaining a healthy and genuine food style, according to the typical Italian Mediterranean dietary.

Today I’m pleased to propose a dish made with simple ingredients, but arranged in a starry chef way!

I chose the Sea Bream – a coastal fish very common in the Italian sea – because it is a fish with delicate meat, which also lends itself well to extremely simple recipes. Bream owes its name to the golden strip positioned between the eyes, which characterizes this species.

I flavored the Sea Bream meat with an excellent seasonal Escarole sautéed in a pan, adding a handful of Pine Nuts that I had previously toasted.

For a bit of a pungent taste, I added some Taggiasca Olives.

Probably the most complicated part of this recipe, if you are not used to handling fishes, is filleting the sea bream.

But don’t worry, following the steps below you a full explanation on how to filleting fish … and do it without dirtying the whole kitchen !! If you prefer a visual guide for filleting fish on Wikihow you can find an excellent one.

How to filleting fish

1. First of all, remove all fins with scissors.

2. Take a transparent plastic bag (those for the freezer) and insert the fish by the head side. Holding the fish by the tail use the back of the knife (not with the blade, otherwise you will ruin the skin), to scratch the surface and remove the scales. Take care to use an appropriate filleting fish knife!

3. Rinse the fish thoroughly.

4. Make a cut on the belly of the fish starting from the hole near the tail and going towards the head and eliminate the bowels. Rinse the fish in the internal cavity.

5. Make an incision with the knife along the entire back of the fish, just above the dorsal fins, then make two more incisions: one at the junction of the head and the other just before the tail.

6. Cut the meat by inserting the blade into the incision and working as close as possible to the bone, with the blade of the downward blade it slowly and carefully reaches the tail trying to detach as much meat as possible from the central bone.

7. When the tip of the knife reaches the central bone, slightly lift the blade and proceed slowly (in this section the fish is thinner).

8. Arriving with the knife at the bottom of the fish you will have obtained the first fillet. Turn the fish to the other side and proceed in the same way to obtain the second fillet.

9. With a fish tweezer, remove the remaining thorns from the fillets.

According to the preparations, we can use fish fillets with the skin or completely peeled. For this recipe, you need to peel the fillets.

To peel fish fillets, I make a small incision near the tail that allows me to hold the fish, and with the blade slightly inclined downwards we proceed forward to separate the fillet from the skin itself.

A tip: when you use fillets with the skin, make some incisions on the skin to prevent it from shrinking and deforming the fillets during cooking.

A unique flavor!

I’ll give you a very last tip to have a perfect plating of your amazing Sea Bream Flan.

Once the cooking is finished, put the baking sheet on the countertop. Then to take away the Sea Bream Flan from the baking sheet, place a flat spatula below the Coppapasta. Gently deposit the flan in the middle of a serving plate and then slowly remove the Coppapasta (with the tip of the knife to remove the fish from the edge).

Sprinkle the Sea Bream Flan with a handful of toasted pine nuts and Taggiasca olives and conclude with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

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Here, however, you will find other fantastic Fish and Seafood Recipes with an Italian style for your summer!!

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