FOOD NEWS
The Salt-Crust Method Will Give You The Juiciest Fish Of Your Life
By Linda Larsen
Fish is an essential part of a healthy diet that can be delicious and juicy if prepared correctly, but it is also easy to overcook due to its delicate, thin skin, low fat, and shorter muscle fibers that cook quickly. When overcooked, the proteins in the flesh over-coagulate, squeezing out moisture in the flesh and resulting in a dry fish, but you can prevent this with the salt-crust method.
Salt flavors the fish and protects it from the oven heat, cooking it gently inside the crust while holding in flavor and juices, but you can only use this method with a whole, skin-on fish. After you’ve gutted it and removed the fins and gills, mix a lot of coarse or kosher salt with egg white until it feels like sand, put a layer about ½-inch deep in a baking dish, add the fish, and pat the remaining salt mixture over it until it is completely covered.
Bake the fish at 400 degrees F for about 35 minutes, remove it from the oven, and let it stand for 10 minutes. Remove the salt crust with a fish spatula or a knife to slice around the fish and lift the crust off, or crack the crust to peel it off. Brush off any excess salt, and skin it before serving.