Sunday Dinner: Whole Baked Branzino with Simply Savory Green Beans

I love shopping at Whole Foods, and to budget sensibly I use their website to look up our local store's specials and plan weekday meals in advance. Yesterday, I saw whole Branzino Sea Bass on sale and decided to plan a Sunday Dinner around the find. You can substitute this seasonal fish for striped bass, trout or snapper for this recipe. This meal is an oh so elegant and easy way to do fine dining at home!

Ingredients for Branzino

• 2, .75/1 lb whole branzinos *ask your butcher to clean the fish and remove the head*
  
• 4 tbsp olive oil
  
• handful of fresh dill leaves
  
• handful of fresh italian parsley leaves
  
• 1 lemon, cut into slices
  
• freshly ground sea salt & pepper
  
• cooking spray

Ingredients for Green Beans

• 1 pound fresh green beans
  
• 2 tsp minced garlic
  
• 2 tbsp butter
  
• 2 tbsp olive oil
  
• juice of 1/2 lemon
  
• fresh ground sea salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. First prep all your ingredients for the fish, as shown above, to assemble easily. It may be easier to grate fresh salt and pepper into a small container so you don't have to grate directly into fish.


Rub both outside and inside of branzino with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Rub the inside cavity with salt and pepper. Stuff the fish with herbs and lemon slices.


Heat the remaining 2 tbsp of olive oil in a large skillet. Pan fry the branzino in for 2 minutes on each side. Use a non-stick pan, as you can see in my pic the heat pulled the skin off one of the sides of a branzino, so if that happens no worries!


Transfer the branzino to oven roasting dish that has been greased with cooking spray. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes (add a couple of minutes if your fish are larger), remove from heat and let rest 5 minutes before serving.


While the branzino are in the oven, put a pot of water to boil with salt and prep the green beans by cutting off the ends. Blanch the green beans for 5 minutes.


Drain green beans and set aside. In same pot add butter, olive oil and garlic. Simmer for 1 minute, careful not to let garlic burn.


Add green beans and season with freshly ground sea salt & pepper. Saute until just tender, approximately another 5 minutes. Add juice of half a lemon - mine was dry so I used a whole lemon. Stir and remove from heat. Yummers.