Pasta con orata
Gilt-head bream in tomato sauce
Making use of one of the most cherished Mediterranean food fish, pasta with orata pinpoints the taste of long sunny days by the sea.
‘A dear child has many names‘ we say in Scandinavia to indicate that popularity can be measured in the number of synonyms for a person or object. By that measure bream in its various disguises is definitely a much loved fish. In Italy gilt-head bream is known as orata, marmora, mormora, pagella or pagro and it is often served as a whole roast with a salmoriglio mixture of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, parsley and capers.
If, for some reason, you have a left over bream fillet, or if you don’t like fish eyes staring accusingly up at you from your plate, you might want to try bream in tomato sauce.
Ingredients
1 bream in fillets
400 g tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
1 tbsp grated parmesan
Fresh thyme, rosemary and parsley
Salt and pepper
Preparation
Skin the tomatoes after giving them a quick boil.
Put the tomatoes in a casserole, add crushed garlic, chopped thyme and rosemary, salt and pepper and let the sauce simmer for 10 minutes, until it starts to thicken.
Stir in a spoonful of parmesan to make the sauce extra creamy.
Add the bream fillets to the tomato sauce and let it simmer, while you cook the pasta.
I use a nice homemade pappardelle, but other types of cut pasta or pasta corta can be used instead.
Sprinkle the pasta con orata or bream in tomato sauce with parsley before serving.
Pasta con orata is a simple preparation of gilt-head bream in tomato sauce.
Italian Notes
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