Sea Bass in a salt crust with thyme sauce, artichokes and chorizo oil.

Recipe for four people.

1 Sea Bass, 2-3 kg, gutted and descaled

1 twig each of thyme, rosemary and a sprig of parsley.

3kg of coarse sea salt

300g flour

150 starch

3 eggs

Mix salt, flour, starch and eggs. Put the herbs in the cleaned fish, and place on a bed of salt mix on a baking tray. Cover with salt mixture. Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degrees Celsius for 35-40 minutes.

Thyme Sauce:

2 shallots, sliced

0.1 litre Noilly Prat

0.2 litre dry white wine

0.2 litre fish stock

0.2 litre double cream

Salt, Cayenne Pepper, Lemon juice.

Fry shallots in butter until transparent. Add Noilly Prat, wine and fish stock. Reduce by half. Add thyme and double cream and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt, cayenne pepper and lemon juice to taste. Pass through a sieve.

Chorizo oil:

100 g sliced chorizo

1 red pepper, chopped

100 g good quality oliveoil

Fry ingredients gently, then place in an oven at fifty degrees celsius for three hours.

Pass through a sieve.

Artichokes:

8 mini artichokes

Oil to cook

Remove the outer leaves from the artichokes. Heat the vegetable oil to 160 degrees and bake the artichokes until golden brown. Remove excess oil and sprinkle with salt.

Presentation: Cut open the sea salt crust and share the fish out. Place some sauce on the plates and drizzle chorizo oil over the fish. Add artichokes. Gratin of potato puree is an optional extra.