Oven Baked Grey Mullet

Ingredients

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C/395 °F.
2. Remove scales from grey mullet and gut it.
3. Prepare a baking tray and cover it with olive oil. Peel the potatoes, slice them into slices about 0.5 cm (0.2 inch) thick and place them on the baking tray. After that, slice the onions, peppers, tomatoes and garlic. Cut the lemon, too.
4. Place the clean fish on top of the potatoes and generously sprinkle it with salt on both sides. Season it on the inside of the belly cavity, too.
5. Arrange the onions, garlic cloves, and sliced peppers evenly on the tray. Afterward, generously season the vegetables with salt, and meticulously mix the onions and peppers with the potatoes to ensure they are uniformly distributed around the fish.
6. Stack a few cloves of garlic, lemon slices and fresh parsley into the belly cavity. You can also “decorate” the gill opening with a nice chunk of fresh lemon on each side.
7. Add slices of tomatoes to the vegetable mixture and sprinkle everything with a bit of black pepper and a decent amount of dried rosemary. Place two or three additional slices of lemon on the fish and pour over some olive oil. This will give the fish skin a nice crunch when baked.
8. Bake at 200 °C/395 °F for about 45 minutes.
9. After 25 minutes, carefully flip the fish to the other side using a wide kitchen tool or two forks, one near the head and the other near the tail. Also, stir the vegetables.
10. Add the tomatoes and lemons on top of the fish to enhance the flavor. 
11. While the mullet is baking, prepare the sauce. Peel and finely chop the garlic cloves. You can do this by hand with a sharp knife or use a food processor for well-chopped garlic. Quickly fry the garlic in hot olive oil for no more than a minute.
12. The fish is ready when its skin turns a nice golden color and looks crunchy. When it’s baked enough, it should flake easily with a fork. Now, transfer everything to a large plate. Add garlic sauce with parsley and garnish with fresh basil leaves.