Wash and dry the fish inside and out. Wash fresh herbs as desired (such as parsley, chives, rosemary, thyme, etc.) and stuff into its interior. Cut a lemon with peel into slices and put it in its interior as well.
Preheat the oven to 200 °. Line the baking sheet with paper. Put the salt in a larger bowl. Slightly whip the egg white so that it is a bit frothy and not just liquid. Then mix with the salt together with water. It should no longer "trickle" anywhere, instead it should be very slightly sticky. If necessary, add 20 ml more water.
Then put enough salt mixture on the baking paper about 2 cm thick and smooth it out a little so that - when you have placed the fish on it - it peeps out all around. Then completely coat the fish with the rest of the salt mixture. Make sure that the layer is as thick as possible everywhere and that no openings can be seen anywhere. Then slide the tray into the oven on the 2nd rail from below.
A fish of the size given here takes 30 - 40 minutes. In the last 10 minutes, the heat in the oven is switched off. The salt crust can be opened with a sharp knife or a "meat tenderizer". For safety reasons, I prefer the meat tenderizer. Since the crust is very hard, it is easy to slip off with the knife.
When the surface of the crust is completely removed and the fish is exposed, it can be filleted. To do this, the skin is incised in the middle and removed from the meat. Then the fillets can be lifted out along the bones. When the top is removed and the bones are exposed, they are cut off at the head and tail and carefully lifted out. The two lower fillets are then exposed and can also be removed.
The fish becomes wonderfully juicy and aromatic in the salt coat. I also had no other choice because it didn't fit in a pan and had to be cooked in the oven anyway. The salt crust was a good choice. For smaller and lighter fish, the amount for the salt coat must be adjusted accordingly.
Unfortunately, the photos are missing from the filling and sheathing, because my camera - it currently has a life of its own - has swallowed it ..............