Name: Roasted Red Mullet with Black Olives (Les rougets barbets au four)
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: generous handful of basil leaves, torn in your fingers and a few whole leaves for serving; salt, pepper; 4-5 tbsp olive oil; 1 kg ripe plum tomatoes skinned, seeded and chopped; 2 onions, finely chopped; 4 large red mullet, around 200g each - called femelles on the market of Beziers - have them scaled and gutted, but leave the livers inside if possible; 50 g black olives, stones removed; 100 ml dry white wine

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Sud de France

By Caroline Conran

Published 2012

About

This recipe, perfumed with basil, is from the Beziers district. Local writer Joseph Delteil says this creation, the famous red mullet with black olives, burst up out of the seafoam ready-formed, like Venus.

In Languedoc red mullet are plentiful, but are always treated with great respect, I think partly because of their iridescent cardinal red colour. These fish are sometimes cooked whole and ungutted, as the liver is a delicacy to be savoured, but the guts can be ho