Saturday night I cooked 2 whole Yellow-Tail Snappers. And I learned a whole lot about whole fish while I was at it. I got the inkling to cook whole fish after reading an article on the subject. It looked so good and I really wanted to try it on my charcoal grill. I know a lot about fish since I was the fish monger at most of the restaurants I worked in and I handled all of the fish when I had the catering business. I am extremely proficient in cooking fish but I haven’t cooked it whole for a very long time. I thought, “why not really challenge myself and do it on the grill”.
I took a trip to the local fish store and after having a discussion with the owner about what to get I settled on Yellow-Tail Snapper. The next decision was what size to get. The owner suggested a two pounder for two people. I bought two and invited Patrea and Parker to partake in my cooking adventure. The size of the fish ended up being 2 1/2 pounds each. The fish monger at the store removed the fins, de-scaled them and slashed the skin on both sides at about two inch intervals. Slashing the skin about 1/4″ into the flesh makes for even cooking. Of course they were already gutted and cleaned when they were weighed. I thought how great it would be to have these huge snappers and that I probably had too much fish, but, so what, I could always make fish salad for Jim’s lunch.
I brought my “catch” home and marveled at how beautiful they were and how sweet they smelled. The eyes were clear and knew they were going to be delicious. Just about the time I was going to build the fire it started to pour down rain and continued to do that for the rest of the night so no grilled fish for us. I would have to cook these babies in the oven under the broiler turned up as high as it could go.
Just a few minutes before I put them in the oven, I rubbed olive oil all over the inside and outside of each of the snapper (about 2 tablespoons for each fish), sprinkled both with a liberal amount of coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper being sure I rubbed everything into the slashes on the fish. I lined each of the cavities with three thin slices of lemon and fronds from a bulb of fresh fennel. I put them on a sheet pan lined with foil and sprayed the foil with non-stick cooking spray (Pam).
Into the oven they went with the oven rack about 6 inches below the heat source. I cooked them for about 10 minutes on each side to make the cooking more even and to crisp the skin. When they were finished cooking I took them out of the oven and let them rest for about 5 minutes. Resting makes it a lot easier to take the fillets off the bones.
Here’s what I learned about cooking the 2 1/2 pound whole fish: There is very little yield. The bones are so big, as are the head and tail, that there is not much meat. Out of the total 5 pounds of fish I got, maybe, 1 1/2 pounds of meat. Believe me when I tell you I left no meat on the bones. I was extremely disappointed. Disappointed in the direction the owner of the store took me and disappointed that I didn’t know better. The lesson here is next time I will buy smaller fish, 1 to 1 1/4 pounds each and I know I will get more meat than what I got off those two big boys.
Here’s the good news: The fish was so incredibly fresh and delicious and tasty and just so good that I will always buy whole fish if it is available. Cooking fish on the bone is the same as cooking meat or poultry on the bone. Much more flavor is the guaranteed result. The other part of the good news is that I did all of the discovery for you saving you the disappointment I went through.
There you have it: My experience cooking whole fish.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
camille@camillecooksforyou.com
Enjoy!!!