Zapechena Ryba (запечена риба, baked fish with carrots)

The first thing you notice is the color: carrot-orange oil seeping into white fish, onion gone soft and sweet, dill landing green at the end like somebody opened the garden gate. This is the southern Sunday bake I know best, fish covered rather than displayed, generous enough for the table to reach into twice. Hot from the oven it's soft and glossy; cold the next day, it settles into something almost like a pickle without vinegar shouting over it.

The method is simple, but it has one stubborn truth. You must cook the carrot and onion before they meet the fish. Raw carrot in the oven stays separate and polite; slow-sweated carrot gives up its sweetness into the sunflower oil, and that oil carries the fish instead of drying it. Aunt Nadia wrote only, "until the smell changes," which was annoying until it became useful: the raw onion sharpness disappears, the carrot smells round and warm, and the pan goes quiet.

Use what fish you can get. Carp, bream, pike-perch, sea bass, hake, cod loin, all of them can sit under this orange coat and behave. A whole fish feels like a celebration, thick fillets are easier for a weeknight. The dish is the act of making it for someone, not the shopping list.