WARNING: there will be mess. You might end up with the kitchen covered in salt chipping merrily off the crust while trying to chisel in. You may well be serving scraps of fish gone cold. Ah, you might even give in and stick the roasting tray, salt and all in the middle of the table and pass the diners spoons to help themselves, medieval style.
It will still be worth it. Fish wonderfully moist, fragrant like an angel, flaking like the devil himself and the best bit – the house full of incredible smell of coriander, fennel and star anise roasting in hot salt.
I swiped the recipe off Jun Tanaka but drew a line at his instructions to get the fish gutted and boned through the back (???) – that’s way beyond my pay grade, so I used the fish normally gutted. In all honesty I don’t know if the spices in the crust render fragrance to the fish but as I said, the gorgeous smells from the baking make it taste as fragrant.
Sea bass is of course as good to use, and you might want to experiment with the salt crust dough which some recipes advocate – but just dumping a whole lot of salt over a fish seems so much easier, it’s a no brainer. Because as you can gather from the above – baking fish in a salt crust is actually a piece of gateau. Getting to eat it is a challenge.