I'm warning you now - this is an expensive, decadent dinner for special occasions and/or showing off. Feel free to mix and match the bits you like most (the salad, the paste, the idea of stuffing fish with fried halloumi).
I pretty much made this up, but I'm happy to say that it worked. For food nirvana, make sure everything has enough salt (my attitude to salt is the same as this lady's). Picture:
Ingredients (serves 4):
4 whole sea bass (or any white fish really), cleaned and gutted
8 slices of halloumi (not too thick, but thick enough so they won't fall apart during frying)
12 asparagus spears, trimmed
Olive oil - um, quite a bit...
4 whole heads of garlic
Several sprigs of rosemary, chopped
2 lemons
Salt and pepper
For the salad (apart from the chickpeas and artichokes, everything else is 'to taste'. Be sure to taste the salad while mixing in order to get the balance just right):
1 can of chickpeas (approx. 400g), drained
3 artichokes
(Optional) 2 bay leaves, a few garlic cloves and slices of lemon for boiling/steaming artichokes
Baby plum tomatoes
Black olives (pref. kalamata)
About half a large red onion
Dried mixed herbs - I used 'Greek mix'
Hot chilli flakes (go easy!)
SALT (again, go easy, but then again it really brings out the flavours so make sure there's enough) and pepper
Olive oil - ahem, again lots.
Pre-heat oven to 200C/gas mark 6.
Firstly, I have to say that artichokes are the most irritating, fiddly, time-consuming vegetable I have ever come across. However, they are worth it because they taste divine. So - the first thing you want to do is trim your artichokes and put them on to boil/steam. Here is a guide - if you don't have a steamer or steaming basket, you can just boil them in water with the optional lemon/garlic/bay leaves. Either way, cooking time for average-sized artichokes should be about half an hour. When they're done, leave the artichokes to cool for a bit.
Then put your garlic heads on to roast. You can find out how here (400F is equivalent to 200C or gas mark 6).
Meanwhile, prepare the fish and halloumi. Wash the fish if necessary to get rid of any excess scales. Fry the halloumi in olive oil until both sides are lightly browned, then stuff each fish with two slices. Cut off both ends of one lemon, slice into eight and stuff each fish with two lemon slices.
When the garlic heads are done, leave them to cool for a while (I'm impatient so I'm happy to get burned fingers) then squeeze out the browned pulp and mash into a paste with the juice of your other lemon, rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper. Spoon/rub this paste all over the four fish.
Prepare the salad by mixing together everything other than the artichokes (which need special attention - see below). Now put the fish on to roast for 20 minutes at 220C/gas mark 7. Put the asparagus spears, rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper, in the oven when the fish has 10 minutes to go.
Now for the artichokes. These need a lot of fiddly preparation - refer back to the article I cited. As it says, apart from the heart of the artichoke which can just be chopped, you'll need to individually scrape off the edible part of each petal - I use my long thumb nails, although some might consider that hygenically questionable. It's quite time-consuming, which is why I suggest preparing the rest of the salad before you put the fish in the oven, so you can have 20 minutes of pure, unadulterated artichoke fun.
When artichoke time is finally over, SERVE! You can put a poncey extra sprig of rosemary like I did in the picture if you want - I do love frivolous garnishes.
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