The Gilthead Bream is a flamboyant fellow, with the decadent, gold-coloured strip across its forehead. The gold band might well give the fish a touch of flair, a dash of exoticism, but it also acts as a helpful identifier – which is great when you’re standing in your fishmongers dreaming of your favourite Gilthead Bream recipes.
Preparation and cooking
Like the Black Bream, the Gilthead is easy to prepare. It’s merely a case of scaling it, trimming the fins, gutting it, and rinsing the fish under cold water.
My favourite way of cooking a Gilthead Bream is on the barbeque. This is because most Gilthead Bream are farmed, which makes them a little lazier and a little fatter. You can tell a farmed fish by the extra fat in the cavity of the fish once it’s been gutted. This extra fat helps it cooks beautifully over hot coals.
A Gilthead Bream can also be pan-fried, grilled, steamed and baked. This versatility, along with its easy preparation, makes the Gilthead Bream an excellent fish to experiment with as a beginner to cooking seafood.
I used to buy Giltheads a lot, and went through a phase of cooking them en papillote (in a bag) with brown rice and Hungarian sausage. It was strange combination, but I liked it all the same.
Gilthead Bream recipes
If you don’t fancy my Hungarian sausage version (shame on you) there’s a cracking Gilthead Bream recipe in Rick Stein’s Secret France. Baked whole Bream with potatoes is a simple, but fantastic recipe.
We’ve written a review of Secret France for you, or head on over to Amazon and buy it. The book has another Gilthead Bream recipe involving aioli. And we all know there’s nothing better in the world than aioli.
Seasonality
Farmed fish can be eaten all year. If you do happen to find a source for wild Giltheads it’s best to avoid buying them between October and December.
Sustainability
Read more on the latest Marine Conservation Society Good Fish Guide ratings.