Instructions: I use whole fish which means you can cook a small mullet or John Dory for 1 or 2 people or cook a large salmon bass or brill for a group or party.

My favourite fish for this method of cooking are red mullet bream salmon turbot brill and trout.

Ask your fishmonger to scale and gut the fish then all you have to do is stuff the betty cavity with fresh fragrant herbs and lemon slices.

Choose a selection of fresh herbs (basil fat leaf parsley fennel tops dill coriander or bay).

Then take an appropriately sized baking tray and lay baking foil over it allowing an extra 300mm to hang over each side. Sprinkle at least 20mm of coarse sea salt on the bottom you can buy large kilogram bags of coarse sea salt (it must be coarse unground sea salt) in supermarkets.

Place your whole stuffed fish on top of the salt (I always make sure that there are enough herbs hanging/bulging out of the belly cavity to stop the salt getting in).

Sprinkle the rest of the salt on top (about 20mm high).

Then just crumple up the excess foil and push down between the salt and the tray (this basically just hugs the fish at the sides and saves you having to use too much salt).

Drizzle a little water over the top of the salt to help make a crust.

Cook in the middle of the oven at its highest temperature for 10 minutes per 450g. If you are cooking wild salmon you might want to undercook it slightly to appreciate its clean and natural taste. Simply reduce the cooking time by 2 minutes per 450g (wild salmon is probably the only fish that I would do this with).

After baking allow to rest for 15 minutes (the fish will carry on gently cooking) then gently break and remove the salt; be careful not to pierce the skin of the fish as you wilt make the flesh salty.

After exposing the lovely steaming fish simply place it in the middle of the table with some fresh bread crisp green salad boiled potatoes and two or three dips.

Fish cooked this way is so quick and easy dead sociable to eat and most importantly tastes luscious. The fish retains all its natural moisture and juices and just seems to melt away from the bone; it does not as you would imagine taste salty at all.

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