Salt-crust roasting — packing a whole fish in a thick envelope of coarse salt and baking until the salt forms a hard crust — cooks the fish by retained steam in a sealed, lightly salted environment. The finished fish is broken from the crust at the table; the flesh is extraordinarily moist and delicately seasoned.
- **The salt paste:** Coarse sea salt mixed with egg white (2 egg whites per kg of salt) — the egg white binds the salt into a pliable paste that can be formed around the fish. - **The salt quantity:** Enough to completely enclose the fish in a 2cm layer on all sides. - **The aromatics:** Placed inside the fish cavity — lemon slices, herbs — they steam inside the salt crust. - **The baking:** 200°C — the salt crust reaches temperature and acts as an oven-within-an-oven. A 1.5kg whole fish: 25–30 minutes. - **The breaking:** At the table — a knife or mallet used to crack the salt crust. The crust comes away in large pieces; the fish beneath is perfectly intact. - **The seasoning:** The salt crust does not over-salt the fish — only the surface of the fish absorbs the salt's sodium. The interior remains delicate and barely seasoned.
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