Greek Baked Fish with Vegetables (Psari Plaki)

Plaki describes a whole family of Greek dishes baked slowly over a bed of vegetables, and psari plaki, whole fish cooked this way, is one of its most classic and reliable forms. Onion, garlic, tomato and potato go into the dish first and cook down together, and the fish bakes directly on top, absorbing their juices as it cooks rather than being treated separately.

This is genuinely forgiving, one-dish cooking, well suited to a whole fish that might otherwise feel intimidating to prepare, since the oven does almost all the work and there is no hard sear or precise timing to manage the way grilling a whole fish demands.

A firm white fish that holds together well through a longer bake, such as sea bream, sea bass, or a similar whole fish, is the right choice here, since a very delicate fillet would simply fall apart over the cooking time this dish wants.

Key preparation steps

1. Build a base of onion, garlic, tomato and potato in a baking dish.
2. Part-cook the vegetable base before the fish goes in.
3. Lay the whole fish on top and bake until just cooked through.
4. Rest briefly before serving straight from the dish.

Building the vegetable base

Slice onion, potato and tomato, and toss with garlic, olive oil and a generous amount of dried oregano in the base of a large baking dish. Bake this base alone for twenty minutes before the fish goes anywhere near it, which gives the potato and onion a head start, since they need considerably longer to cook through than the fish itself will.

Adding the fish

Once the vegetables have softened and begun to colour, nestle the whole, cleaned fish on top, season it well, and drizzle with a little more olive oil and a squeeze of lemon. Return to the oven and bake until the fish flakes easily and is just cooked through, which for a mid-sized whole fish takes twenty-five to thirty minutes.

Serving

Rest for a few minutes before serving, straight from the baking dish, spooning the vegetables and their juices alongside the fish. This is a complete meal in one dish, needing little beyond good bread to round it out.

What matters in this dish