• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Pantry Fun

  • Home
  • Soups
  • Mezes
  • Börek
  • Turkish Salad
  • Main Meals
    • Turkish Meat Recipes
    • Fish
    • Vegetable Dishes
  • Sweet Treats
  • Drinks
  • About
    • About Lulu Witt
    • Awards
    • Ottolenghi
    • Contact Us

Sea Bass Baked in Parchment with Rakı and Herbs/Kağıtta Levrek Buğulama

24th February 2014 By Claudia Turgut Leave a Comment

This is going to be my very next dinner party recipe, I swear. Followed by revani for dessert!

Sea bass

Delicious sea bass/levrek baked in parchment

A few days ago, I thought some fish for dinner wouldn’t come amiss after what seemed like a lot of meat recently. We actually prefer fish and I buy it regularly. I love the fish markets either in Karaköy or Kadıköy – so much more attractive than the rather sterile fish counters in the supermarkets. Having said that, they don’t clean fish better than in the Migros in Caddebostan!

Karaköy fish market

This is Karaköy fish market just by the Galata Bridge – I love it, it’s so colourful and the fish so fresh and appetising

This recipe where the fish is baked in kitchen paper/parchment is superb: not only does the fish remain moist but because it is smothered in a layer of fresh herbs, not to mention with the addition of rakı/the Turkish national anise-based drink means that the fragrant aroma upon opening up the parcel is just irresistible. Talk about ‘opening up your appetite’! Here, I used levrek or sea bass but you could equally use any firm-fleshed fish.

Assembling the ingredients

Levrek is farmed extensively in this country. TT swears he can tell the difference between that and regular sea bass.  I can certainly tell the difference in the price!

Here’s the recipe that I’m sure will appeal to those fish lovers amongst you:

Sea Bass Baked in Parchment with Rakı and Herbs/Kağıtta Levrek
 
Serves 4
adapted slightly from Özcan Ozan‘s ‘Sultan’s Kitchen’
Ingredients
 
1 bunch spring onions, finely chopped – I used 8, slit down the middle and chopped
½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh dill/dereotu
2 tsp finely chopped fresh mint/nane
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp flaked red pepper/pul biber
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp melted butter
4 sea bass fillets/levrek fileto – about 2lbs in weight
4 fresh or dried bay leaves/defne yaprağı
2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced (1½ cups)
2 small green peppers, seeded and thinly sliced
1/4 cup lemon juice, plus 4 thin lemon slices
1/4 cup virgin olive oil

1/4 cup rakı (anise-flavoured liqueur) or ouzo

Method
  • Pre-heat oven to 200C/400F.
  • Cut 4 pieces of kitchen parchment into rectangles large enough to enclose a fillet of fish.
  • In a bowl, mix the spring onions, parsley, dill, mint, paprika, and red pepper flakes. Season with salt and pepper.
  • Heat the butter and brush each piece of parchment with it. Place a fillet in the centre of each sheet lengthwise. Place a bay leaf on top of each fillet. Evenly distribute the spring onion-and-herb mixture among the parcels. Place the tomatoes, green peppers, and sliced lemon on top.
  • Sprinkle each parcel with 1 tbsp each of the lemon juice, olive oil, rakı and water. Season with salt and pepper.
  • Make an envelope out of the parchment by bringing the top and bottom edges of the parchment together in the middle over the fillet, and folding them down together (as if you were folding down the top of a lunchbag) to enclose the fish tightly. Twist both ends like a candy wrapper (sweet paper to us) and fold them under the fillet. Moisten the tops of the packages with a little water to help make a tight seal.

    4 fillets 4 packages

  • Place the packages on a baking tray and bake them for about 25 minutes.
  • To serve: open the packages halfway (be careful of the steam) and place one package on each plate.

    baked sea bass in parchment

    And here we have the baked sea bass in parchment with rakı and herbs!

Afiyet olsun!PS While I was waiting for my levrek to be cleaned, I noticed that the other guy who was filleting a ton of hamsi had surreptitiously put a whole lot in my little plastic container.
Are you giving them to me, I silently mouthed in Turkish and he smiled and nodded.
That evening we had a feast: I simply coated the hamsi/anchovy in seasoned flour and then fried them in hot oil so that they were crisp and crunchy. Then we had a package of  baked levrek each with a green salad –
delicious!!!!!

Related

Filed Under: Fish, Sea Bass Tagged With: baked fish, fish, Fish and Seafood, fish in paper, levrek, levrek baked in paper with rakı and herbs, sea bass

Previous Post: « An Evening in Istanbul with Özlem’s Turkish Table: Revani, a Syrupy Semolina Dessert Dating Back to the Taking of Yerevan in today’s Armenia
Next Post: Celeriac Soup with Fennel and Apple/Rezeneli Kereviz Çorbası »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

GET  YOUR  RECIPE  UPDATES

VIA  EMAIL

Popular Posts

  • Bread-making in a Turkish... Yesterday was a very interesting day. It marked the...
  • Classic Potato Börek/ Pat... I never thought I would make a potato börek and yet...
  • Cooking New Istanbul Style ‘Cooking New Istanbul Sty... Claudia the founder of Seasonal Cook in Turkey recently...
  • Piyaz Antalyan Way Piyaz – The Antalya... If you find yourself in the region of Antalya then most...
  • Julia Child’s Navar... In an old farmhouse deep in Provence outside the li...
  • Liver on a bed of red onions Spicy Turkish Liver in th... Albanian liver  Arnavut ciğeri [pron:jee/air], in t...
  • Tarhana by Kat Kamstra - Seasonal Cook in Turkey Tarhana – A Labour... Tarhana is one of the oldest known instant soups. Possi...

Copyright©2021 Pantryfun.com • Back to Top •Contact US • Privacy Policy