Baked sea bream, besugo al horno —and a girls trip to Greece

Natacha Sanz Caballero Fish, Events & Travel Acropolis, Aegina, Athens, fish, girls trip, Greek Islands, Hydra, mediterranean diet, Poros 2 Comments

I promised in my last post that I would tell you more about trips I did in the spring, so even though it is summer, I will honor my promise. Because how could I not tell you about my first ever trip to Greece?

I thought it very appropriate to accompany this post with the recipe for besugo al horno, baked sea bream, a Spanish dish that is so Mediterranean that it is more than fitting for a post about a neighboring Mediterranean country.

The charming Panaghia Kapnikarea Church in central Athens

I am lucky enough to be able to now find whole fish at my local Costco store, so I hope you can find it in your area as well and make this healthy, delicious and very easy to make dish, even if you don’t live on the coast. Not to mention how impressive it looks on a platter! A great option for a special celebration, that is perfectly suitable for an everyday meal.

Baked over a bed of potatoes and onions, with a delicate flavor from bay leaves and generously drizzled with very good extra-virgin olive oil, baked sea bream is as beautiful as it is satisfying. I used sea bream, but you can use any whole fish you find at your fishmonger or supermarket.

The Parthenon at night, the view from our hotel

About Athens

Last March, my sisters, my mom and I traveled to Greece to celebrate a very special birthday, my mom’s. I will start by saying that Greece wasn’t at the top of my list for countries to visit, because there are a number of European countries I haven’t yet been to. But living in Spain, my sisters have traveled everywhere in Europe, and Greece happened to be the only country none of them had ever been to. We didn’t know what we were missing!

Greece, and specifically Athens, and a few islands we cruised to, happen to be one of those gems one discovers and says how come I had never been here before. If you live or have traveled there, you probably know what I am talking about. The lively streets, day and night. The history and architecture. The food. The gorgeous orthodox churches, some large, some tiny, sharing space with buildings that look like towers next to them. If you’ve been there, I don’t think I am discovering anything new to you.

The change of the guard in front of the Hellenic Parliament, in Syntagma Square

National Library of Greece

The Odeon of Herod the Atticus, at the Acropolis

Walking to the Athens Cathedral

The interior of the Athens Cathedral

At the entrance of the Acropolis

Hadrians Library

Walking through Plaka neighborhood

Gate of Athena Archegetis

The caryatids at the Erechtheion in the Acropolis

The Erechtheion Temple

At the National Archeological Museum

At the National Archeological Museum

The Academy of Athens, with Lycabettus Hill in the background

The original caryatids from the Erechtheion, preserved at the Acropolis Museum

Admiring the Parthenon

The Parthenon

Athens, or at least the historical center, is a very walkable city, much less overwhelming in size than Madrid or Barcelona, that I am more familiar with, or other European capitals, like Paris or London. Our hotel was just a few minutes walk from Syntagma Square, where the Hellenic Parliament sits, and where we watched the very colorful change of the guard. From there, we headed to the National Archeological Museum.

One image I will never forget happened the first night, when we arrived in our hotel. The restaurant was on the top floor and, as we walked up the stairs from our floor to explore where breakfast would be the next morning, the illuminated Parthenon at night appeared in front of us. It was almost as if we could touch it with our fingertips. What an image. We made the Acropolis, where the Parthenon stands, a priority the next day, as we couldn’t get our eyes off of it from our breakfast table, this time in the glorious morning light.

The Acropolis from our hotel rooftop terrace

The Panathenaic Stadium

Hadrians Arch

The Temple of Olympian Zeus

At the Acropolis Museum

At the Zappeion, in the National Gardens of Greece

The very lively Monastiriki Square

In the charming Anafiotika neighborhood

The Temple of Hephaestus

The Ancient Agora, with the Stoa of Attalos on the left and the Parthenon on the right

The Stoa of Attalos, originally constructed from 159 and 138 BC

The Ancient Agora

If you travel to Greece, I recommend you do as we did, and hire a tour guide for at least part of the day. Thanks to our tour guide we learned more about the history of the city and about curiosities of different aspects of Greek live, walked through Hadrian’s Arch, the Temple of Olympian Zeus or the Panathenaic Stadium, learned about the various dishes and what to order and what to avoid and generally had a very fun time (he was a lively and enthusiastic Spanish expat!)

The National Archeological Museum and the Museum of the Acropolis gave us all the additional information we needed about the city and its history. I found it quite enlightening, seeing with my own amazed eyes what I had studied in my school years. Walking the streets of the Plaka neighborhood or enjoying the delicious food in the many restaurants that lined the streets, with their lively terraces, filled our days.

Cruising to the islands!

It was windy!

At the fishing harbor in the island of Hydra

The church of the Dormition, in the Island of Hydra

At the church of the Dormition

Hydra’s fishing harbor

At the port in the island of Hydra

There are donkeys everywhere in Hydra. Motorized vehicles are not allowed

Cruising to the island of Poros

In the island of Poros

The Temple of Aphaia in the island of Aegina

Interior of the Monastery of Agios Nektarios, in the island of Aegina

The Monastery of Agios Nektarios

Happy and exhausted on our last night in Athens

The Ancient Agora and the Acropolis at night

The islands of Hydra, Poros and Aegina

A daytime cruise to the islands of Hydra, Poros and Aegina completed the image that we had of Greece. The beautiful beaches and quaint coastal towns, with houses painted in the distinctive Greek white and blue, the fishermen and their catches, the donkeys everywhere in Hydra as the only form of transportation, the very social people, the delicious food.

In Aegina we visited the Temple of Aphaia, dedicated to the goddess Athena. It was built between the years 480 and 2 BC and is one of the greatest architectural wonders of ancient Greece. Also in Aegina is the Monastery of Agios Nectarios, relatively new, built between 1904 and 1910. Driving through the island we admired the fields of pistachio trees, as Aegina is one of the world’s largest producers of this fruit (we had the most delicious pistachio ice cream here!)

Some Greek food

We had fish (quite a bit of it!), my favorite, and other Greek dishes like the very popular tzatziki (a dip with a yogurt base, cucumber, olive oil and garlic), dolmades (boiled small wraps made of grapevine leaves with different fillings), moussaka (a layered baked dish that includes potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes and some kind of meat), souvlaki (marinated meat grilled in a skewer), and many others. I particularly loved the pistachios from the island of Aegina, roasted with lemon, and the marinated olives.

This baked sea bream reminds me of Spain, but also brings me back to this fabulous trip to Greece in the company of some of the favorite women in my life. I’m looking forward to explore more of that gorgeous country!

PS For more information about the sites we visited, check the links on this post —I didn’t want to make it longer than necessary!

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5 from 1 vote

BAKED SEA BREAM OVER POTATOES

Besugo al horno

Author: Natacha Sanz Caballero, Mama Ía blog

Materials

• 1 large sea bream or 2 medium ones
• 4 medium potatoes
• 2 medium onions I used 4 small ones
• 4 or 5 cloves garlic
• 1 cup white wine
• 2 lemons
• 3 or 4 bay leaves
• 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• A few sprigs of parsley minced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF
• Peel the potatoes and slice them into 1/4 inch thick pieces. Place them in a bowl and toss them with 3 Tbs olive oil. Spread them in an oven dish large enough to fit the fish and season with salt and pepper. Scatter the bay leaves on top and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 20 minutes.
• Slice the onions very thinly and scatter over the potatoes. Sprinkle the onions with the minced parsley. Drizzle the onions and potatoes with half of the wine and the juice of the zested lemon.
• Season the fish on both sides with salt and pepper and place on top of the bed of potatoes and onions.
• Zest one lemon and set the zest aside. Slice the second lemon in thin slices and place them inside the fish. Drizzle the fish with the remaining white wine and the juice from the zested lemon. Sprinkle with the lemon zest. Place the dish in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
• In a small skillet, fry the garlic, unpeeled and slightly smashed, in 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, until soft, 3 to 4 minutes.
• Remove the dish from the oven and pour the garlicky oil and garlic over the fish. Return to the oven and bake an extra 15 minutes, or for a total 10 minutes per pound of fish.
• Serve immediately. If you used two medium sea breams, separate the heads and open each body into 2 filets. Remove the central bone and as many smaller bones as you can. Serve with the potatoes and onions and one or two slices of lemon.

Notes

I used sea bream, but you can use other white flesh whole fish like sea bass