Atlantic Croakers Fish Recipe

A Delicious East and Gulf Coast Oven Roast

Preparation Time: 5 Minutes Cook Time: 35 Minutes

Serves: 2

The croaker is a massively underappreciated fish. The slightly off-white flesh is packed full of scrumptious, slightly sweet flavors, and it has a firm, almost steak-like texture — think swordfish or black drum.

Another wonderful thing about croaker is that they’re very reasonably priced, proving that you don’t need to shell out a month’s wages at your local seafood restaurant to enjoy some pelagic fine dining — hurray!

What you’ll Need for This Croaker Fish Recipe

The fantastic thing about this recipe is that it’s simple, yet elegant. You can take things away or add things to suit your mood, and it’s still guaranteed to taste amazing.

For instance, I’m using carrots, but you could just as well use yams or zucchinis, or, well…whatever really.

Ingredients

1. 2 x croaker fish – The main event! These fish have a robust natural flavor, so when we kick it up a notch with our veggies, herbs, and spices, they’re nothing short of breathtaking.

I’m using descaled croakers for my recipe. Their scales are completely edible, but if your croaker came with the scales on, I recommend descaling at least one side in order to expose the meat to the other ingredients.

2. 3 x carrots – I like to peel mine, but if you just want to wash the skin and use the whole carrot for a no-waist approach to this meal, that’s perfectly fine. Either way, we’re going to be slicing them into disks for roasting with our croakers.

3. 1 yellow onion – Feel free to cut the onion quite chunky, so it mirrors the size of the carrots (if not a bit larger). We want some substantial onion pieces on our plate to distinguish them from our shallots, which brings me to my next ingredient.

4. 6 x shallots – Shallots are my secret weapon. Some may claim using them alongside onions is redundant, but I beg to differ. They have their own signature flavor profile, and they’re going to blend brilliantly with the white wine.

5. 2 x teaspoons of vegetable oil – This is going to help our spice mix adhere to the croaker.

6. ½ cup of white wine – You can use whatever white wine you like, but I like to keep things crisp with a Pinot Grigio or a Sauvignon Blanc.

7. ¼ teaspoon of flaked salt – A touch of salt works magnificently with the natural sweetness of the croaker.

8. A veggie stock cube – We’ll be crushing and sprinkling the stock cube into our spice mix.

9. ½ teaspoon of paprika – Now we’re getting spicy!

10. ¼ teaspoon of ground pepper.

11. 1 teaspoon of all-purpose spice – This is full of good stuff…garlic, onion, herbs, spices – the lot.

12. 6 x fresh parsley leaves.

13. A knob of butter

14. A handful of samphire – I use samphire as a bed for the croaker.

Equipment

1. A medium-sized mixing bowl
2. A baking tray
3. A chopping board
4. Tinfoil
5. A frying pan
6. A basting brush or syringe (optional)

Method

Step 1. Preheating the oven.

We need the oven at 200°C to cook these croakers to perfection, and as the recipe has a short prep time, it’s best to dial this in before we get started.

Step 3. Chopping the veggies.

Peel (or wash) and slice the carrots, chunky-chop the onion, then quarter the shallots.

Step 4. Making the spice mix.

Grab your medium-sized mixing bowl and start spooning all the spices in. This includes the paprika, the salt, the pepper, and the all-purpose spice. Don’t forget to crumble that stock cube in too.

Step 5. Add the vegetable oil.

Now we’re going to add a bit of moisture to the mix to give it an almost paste-like consistency.

Step 6. Cut the croakers in half.

I just do this so I can present them in an enticing stack on the plate because, as a chef friend of mine once said, “for some reason, food just looks better when you build a little tower”.

Step 7. Spicing the fish.

With our spice mix blended to perfection, it’s time to introduce the croaker. The goal is to get as much spice on the flesh as possible, but make sure to leave a little behind to use as a light coating for the veggies too.

Once your croakers are all spiced up, remove them from the mixing bowl and set them aside briefly.

Step 8. Spicing the Veg.

Now pour your carrots, onions, and shallots into the mixing bowl and rub the spices into them.

Step 9. Oven prep.

You’ll need to line your baking tray with tinfoil. Pour out the veggies and the remaining spice mix onto the tinfoil, spreading it out evenly around the center.

Now you can place your spiced croaker on top of the veggies, but before we get them in the oven, curl the edges of the tinfoil up into a bowl shape, and drizzle the white wine evenly over the fish.

Do this as gently as possible, as we don’t want to wash off any of the spice. Finish by throwing in the parsley leaves.

Step 10. Wrap the meal up in the tinfoil.

Encasing the fish in the tinfoil steams it in the wine and its own juices while it roasts, leading to maximum flavor.

Step 11. Put the baking tray in the oven.

Roast the fish for 35 minutes, making sure to open up the tinfoil and baste the croaker at least once.

Step 12. Preparing the samphire.

Just before you take the fish out of the oven, melt the knob of butter in a frying pan, and seer the samphire for 40 seconds to a minute.

Step 13. Serve it up!

Make a bed of samphire on each plate, then top with the fish and veggies — bon appétit!

Final Thoughts

Simple, easy, spectacularly flavorful, you truly can’t go wrong with this croaker dish, and it’s healthy too, so feel free to make it a twice or even three times a week treat.

Once you’ve given this recipe a go, I urge you to let your creativity run wild and give your own personal spice mixes a go, perhaps even roast some potatoes to serve alongside it. You won’t be disappointed!