Whole Roasted Sea Bass

I hate to admit it, but I have no emotional ties to sea bass like some other people seem to have. From the way some people rave about it, you would think that not only did they eat that delicious sea bass, but they raised it, sent it to school, put an Honor Roll bumper sticker on the minivan for it, and walked it down the aisle. Not me. To be perfectly honest, I picked this up at these up at the store because they were on cheap (3 whole frozen sea bass for just under $5 - obviously not the fancy Chilean sea bass.) That being said, I'm glad I did.

Here's what I did with them:

Scaled & removed the fins
Seasoned with kosher salt (liberally) & freshly ground black pepper
Stuffed with flat-leaf parsley, rosemary, and slices of lemon
Drizzled with olive oil & lemon juice
Topped with scallions
Roasted at 450 degrees for 18 minutes
Served with salad & toasted french bread

Note:
Once you've cooked the fish, cut along the backbone from the head to tail to separate the flesh from the bone. You'll be able to lift the top fillet to get to the bones. You can then lift up the bones and serve the remaining fillet.

The sea bass I picked up was Ecuadorian. It's commonly used in ceviche. If you're familiar with ceviche, then you'll know that this fish is light in flavor and has the flakiness of salmon (not too flaky but not firm like tuna.)

For more flavor next time, I would probably use garlic oil instead of plain olive oil. You can make garlic oil by chopping some garlic and heating up some olive oil over medium heat, being careful not to burn the garlic. After removing the garlic, you could pour the oil over the fish just before roasting.