Besugo al Horno

The story

Besugo al horno, sea bream baked with potatoes, is a traditional Christmas Eve dish in many regions of Spain, especially in central Spain, where, despite the distance from the sea, fish was long prized as a festive, somewhat luxurious alternative to everyday meat—part of a wider European pattern in which fish, not meat, is eaten on Christmas Eve in many Catholic and Orthodox traditions. The fish is most often baked whole, on a bed of thinly sliced potatoes and onion, doused with olive oil and white wine, a simple preparation that brings out the freshness of the fish itself. In coastal regions other locally available kinds of fish are used as well, while the name and the basic technique stay much the same. Besugo al horno is served as one of several dishes over the course of the long, festive Nochebuena, the Spanish Christmas Eve that often lasts late into the night. For Spanish families in the diaspora, this simple baked fish adapts easily to whatever species are available locally without losing the spirit of the original.