As I mentioned in My Inner PETA, I just can't eat grouper...groupers. Aw, hell, I even have trouble thinking of them as grouper. They're individuals, not a substance. In fact, I can't understand how any diver can eat them. Groupers frequently follow us around the reef, and they appear genuinely inquisitive. Eating their flesh would be like barbecuing the cardinals who frequent the feeder outside my bedroom window.
Eating snapper, on the other hand, doesn't bother me. Snapper are a bit more skittish than groupers, less inquisitive, less intelligent, less expressive. Any curiosity from a snapper ends at the realization that I don't have any food for it. Not, mind you, that I've seen too many red snappers during dives. Red snappers prefer to stay in the 100 to 200 foot depth range, and they prefer to stay out of sight of humans. I've seen more than my share of cubera snappers, grey snappers, and dog snappers. They show up frequently on night dives, and they usually hang around hoping I'll point a light at something they can eat.
Since they don't pass my sapience test, I consider red snapper fair game. That and they're delicious. Red snapper is my number one generic food fish choice. When I think of fish for dinner, my usual thought process begins with red snapper. Though rarely falling prey to the pungent nastiness we call fishiness, snapper is the fishest fish I know: the quintessential non-fishy-tasting fish taste. Since I live in Texas, I usually think of red snapper, which I can usually get fresh. If I lived in Hawaii, my first choice would be ruby snapper, which is similar to red snapper but slightly more flavorful.
Like mahimahi, snapper is frequently and erroneously classed as a "white-fleshed fish." Anyone who's ever had red snapper sushi or sashimi knows that raw snapper is a glassy translucent pink. Snapper are active feeders. They may not spend their lives swimming through miles of pelagic currents like tuna and mackerel, but neither are they as sedentary as flatfish, cod, or other truly white-fleshed fish. Snapper decidedly does cook white, but so do sardines and anchovies.
Many cooks, I've noticed, complain that snapper is over-rated, that it's bland, that the meat tastes muddy, or that snapper cooked in any way outside of the oven is a waste of fish. Trust me; they're wrong.
To be more specific:
If you try to use snapper in a recipe that works well with salmon, tuna, mahimahi, or a strong fishy fish, you'll overwhelm the delicate flavor of the snapper. In that case, snapper will seem overrated.
If you overcook it or simply do nothing to enhance the inherent crustacean-like sweetness of snapper, the flesh will seem bland.
If the meat tastes muddy, you got one that was caught too close to shore. This seems to be a problem frequent to Florida and the east coast (which apparently gets most of its snapper from Florida). Restaurants in Florida prefer yellow-tailed snapper to red snapper, which always sounded screwy to me. Yellow-tailed snapper are garbage disposals. They feed near the surface like Bermuda chubs, and they'll eat just about anything that hits the water. In much of the Caribbean, anywhere a dive boat docks, the yellow-tailed snappers show up looking for handouts. If you get seasick, these are the fish who'll likely be doing the cleanup. As we've all been told since childhood: you are what you eat.
Red snappers, on the other hand, subsist primarily on live crustaceans and small fish. Apparently, this is not entirely true of the snapper population close to shore, where the red snappers have learned to eat scraps off the bottom. You can usually tell just by examining the fish with your eyes and nostrils. If the flesh is mostly a uniform translucent, pale pink and has no odor or smells faintly of shrimp, you can be fairly certain the fish was not eating garbage. If the flesh has a brownish tinge to it, is mottled, or smells faintly of bowel, don't buy it.
As for baked snapper, hey, baked whole snapper is a marvelous dish. I know several good recipes for taking advantage of all the various textures of the snapper carcass. I don't recommend this treatment, though, unless you're feeding a large party. Personally, I prefer sautéed red snapper filets to the baked whole fish.
For sautéing snapper I have just a few rules of thumb:
- Scale the fish but always leave the skin on. It tastes great. In some treatments, it looks great. Even if you don't eat the skin, the savory gelatin from the skin will help flavor the fish.
- Finish the fish in a poaching or braising (same thing, different depths) liquid. If I've browned the non-skin side, I braise rather than poach so that I can keep the browned portion dry.
- Avoid vinaigrettes and escabeches. Vinegar overwhelms the delicate flavor of the snapper. Note, I said avoid. If you do use a vinaigrette or escabeche make sure it's a mild one.
I previously shared one of my favorite traditional recipes, Huachinango Veracruzano, in My Little Brown Jug. The following are a couple of my more recent red snapper successes.
Curried red snapper with Thai spice crab chowder
dramatis personae
These proportions will feed two.
chowder components:
one tablespoon peanut oil
one half medium onion
two cloves garlic
one tablespoon ginger, minced or grated
one thai pepper, minced
one medium russet potato, peeled and diced
one cup water
one can coconut milk
four snow crab claws
two or three keffir lime leaves, finely minced
cilantro leaves for garnish
haricots verts, snow peas, or snap peas (handful)
one red snapper filet
Madras curry powder
quality of ingredients
Again I tackle the topic of oil. I think all the chefs out there using canola oil are deluding themselves. Canola oil does not cook without imparting flavor. Canola oil tastes like plastic. If I want to minimize the flavor imparted to a dish, I prefer peanut oil. It's not flavorless, but it is mild and pleasant tasting. As for transfat and cis-fat concerns, I've yet to see any evidence that the relatively small quantities of cis-fats and transfats produced from cooking with peanut oil threaten my health. Besides, they've been using it in much of Asia for decades with no discernible increase in health problems.
To recap on the matter of snapper selection: the filets should be intact (no splits or gaps in the flesh), should appear uniformly translucent pale pink, and should have either no odor or a faint aroma of shrimp. For this dish, since the skin is an important element of presentation, the skin should be brightly colored, intact, and unblemished.
I know: haricots verts sounds just too too pretentious, but the green beans sold in the US under this label (which translates, ironically, "green beans") are thinner, sweeter, and less stringy than the ones sold as "snap beans." If you can't find haricot verts, either select the thinnest snap beans you can find, or substitute fresh snow peas or snap peas.
Yes, it has to be a russet potato. Well, okay, not really, but it has to be a high starch, low moisture potato. Why waste anything more complex (a white rose or Yukon gold, for example) when you just want something that will cook down to a starchy pulp as and provide a good chowder base? Besides, russets are cheap.
On a similar note, this treatment has you cooking the onion down to a soft component of a chowder, so sweet onions are wasted here. There's nothing wrong with a sweet onion in this recipe, but you'll usually pay more for it. Use the sweet onions if they're what you already have on hand. Otherwise, for the sake of your shopping list, get a basic white or yellow onion.
"Madras curry powder" is a phrase that will cause many foodies to turn up their noses in disgust. If you're making a curry, I agree that designing your own spice blend can be a rich, rewarding experience. Besides, different types of flesh require a different balance of flavors. In the case of seared fish or curried broils (rubbed meats), where the "curry" is just a small flavor element, I use curry powder. To be precise, I use Sun Brand Madras Curry Powder. I find most other curry powders too high in cumin, too high in chili, or too bland. Pick a curry powder you like. If you want to grind your own, knock yourself out.
Don't use prepared ginger or garlic. The preminced mashed stuff in the jars tastes nasty, and the dried stuff tastes altogether wrong. I also don't recommend pressing the garlic. For this dish, you want the garlic to mellow and soften like the onions. Crushing it will make your chowder taste too garlicky.
I use canned coconut milk. I've done the fresh coconut milk thing, and it really doesn't seem to make much difference. If you want to use fresh, you have to remove the flesh from the coconut (remove the liquid and put the segments on a cookie sheet in a 400 F oven for ten minutes or until the shells pull away from the meat), pulverize it in a food processor, and blend it with the fluid from the coconut. If you use fresh coconut milk, depending on the richness of the resultant milk, this recipe will require one to two cups. (If you're not sure how your coconut milk stacks up against the canned stuff, when the recipe calls for the milk, add one cup and then taste the chowder. Add as much more as you think it needs.)
I used snow crab claws, but Jonah, stone, or dungeness crab claws should work, if that's what you have.
In this particular recipe, the keffir lime leaves are not a requirement, but they add a bright finish. If you can't find the leaves, add a little lime juice just before serving. (Thai basil might also be a nice touch, but I haven't tried this yet.)
notes on preparation
Remove the pin bones and scales from the filet. Leave the skin on. Cut the filet into two serving-sized pieces, and sprinkle the flesh side of each with a fine dusting of curry powder. Set the filets aside while you prepare the chowder and beans.
In a stock pot, heat a teaspoon of the peanut oil to shimmering and add the onion, garlic, thai pepper, and ginger. Stirring frequently to avoid browning, cook the mixture until the onions begin to clarify. Add the potatoes and a half cup of water (the water is just to keep the vegetables from browning). Continue to cook the mixture, adding water as necessary to keep everything moist, until the potatoes are soft enough to mash (about fifteen minutes).
Once the potatoes are soft, add the coconut milk and blend the mixture thoroughly. I had intended to do this with a stick blender, but my stick blender seems to have wandered off. Pouring the concoction into the blender worked fine (be careful to cover the lid with a dish towel or something similar to keep the hot chowder from gushing out the top and scalding you).
Return the chowder to the burner over a low flame and add the crab claws (shells and all). Let the chowder simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the chowder is simmering, blanch the beans (or peas) for two minutes in boiling water. Drain the beans in a strainer or colander; then, sauté them in a teaspoon of peanut oil over a medium high flame for another two minutes. Remove the beans from the pan and set them aside.
Heat the remaining teaspoon of peanut oil in a non-stick sauté pan over a high flame until the oil begins to smoke lightly. Place the filet portions in the sauté pan flesh side down. Leave them alone for two full minutes. Turn the flame down to medium and—being careful to keep them intact (this may take two turners)—flip the filets and let the skin side cook for three full minutes. Again taking care to keep the portions intact, remove the filets from the sauté pan to a plate to cool.
Once the chowder has simmered for twenty minutes, remove the crab claws and to allow them to cool (don't rinse them). Stir the keffir lime leaves into the chowder. Once the claws are cool enough to handle, remove the crab meat. Discard the shells and stir the crab meat into the chowder.
to serve
In two individual pasta bowls or similar flat-bottomed bowls, arrange a web or nest of beans (or peas). I put down five or six beans in parallel and top them with a layer of five or six beans perpendicular to the first set. Place a filet upon each nest, skin side up. Pour chowder all around the filet at least up to the level of the fish but not enough to reach the skin. Garnish the chowder with cilantro.
Red snapper and sea scallops in salsa verde
This started out as a scallop dish. I knew that tomatillos do a nice job of bringing out the inherent sweetness of scallops. I only threw in the snapper because I knew girlchild wouldn't eat the scallops. She has a remarkably broad palate, but she just doesn't seem to have the scallop-lover's gene. To my surprise, she has requested this dish again on more than one occasion.
dramatis personae
These proportions will feed three.
one pound tomatillos
one tablespoon olive oil
three green poblano peppers
one teaspoon lime juice
pinch of sea salt
one red snapper filet (about a pound)
three epazote leaves, minced
quality of ingredients
Tomatillos look a little like green tomatoes. Although they are in the same family as tomatoes, tomatillos are actually more closely related to ground cherries and cape gooseberries. Like those two odd fruits, tomatillos grow in papery husks. If you've never used them, you're in for quite a surprise. Tomatillos should be green (they ripen yellow, but ripe tomatillos have little flavor), firm, and free of blemishes. I'm sure this drives the produce guys nuts, but I always tear the husks (they're just going to be discarded anyway) to check the quality of the fruit. When you remove the husks at home, you'll find that the fruit is sticky with sap. That's normal. The sap rinses off readily.
Poblanos are somewhat variable. One will have no heat whatsoever and the next will have a burn like a jalapeño. As a result, the odds are you'll get a slight amount of chilli burn in this dish, but even with the hottest poblanos, it won't be much. If you want a hotter version of this dish, you're in the wrong set of recipes. Snapper, remember, has a delicate flavor. The poblanos should be dark green, smooth, and shiny. Check the base of the stem to be sure no mold has snuck into the chilli.
If you live anywhere outside of Mexico, Texas, California, and the American Southwest, you may not be able to find epazote. I've seen a number of recipes purporting to create a substitute for epazote. None of them work. Epazote has a unique flavor that includes minty notes, sasparilla notes, and something that smells faintly like a petroleum product. Epazote has an ellusive electric quality that will make your lips and tongue tingle. If you can't find epazote, a little cilantro will add a fresh something extra.
notes on preparation
This recipe is consists of six steps:
- Roast, peel, and seed the poblanos.
- Sauté the tomatillos and roasted poblanos.
- Process the tomatillo/poblano salsa.
- Sauté the scallops.
- Sauté the snapper filets.
- Braise the scallops and snapper filets briefly in the salsa.
Roasting the poblanos
I've tried several techniques for roasting chillis: barbecue, comal, broiler, butane torch, and stovetop. None worked nearly as well as cooking the chillis directly on the stovetop. If you have an electric stove, you'll have to try one of the other methods. Before you start roasting the chillis, whatever method you use, cut off the tip of the pepper to avoid exploding chillis. I roast the poblanos one at a time over a high flame, directly on the burner. Once one side is black, using a pair of dinner forks, turn the poblano over to blacken another side. Keep turning the chilli until all of the skin is black. Remove the chilli from the flame and immediately wrap it in a damp paper towel. Leave that chilli to cool while you roast the next one. When all the chillis are done roasting, the first should be ready to peel.
Roasted chillis peel easily. Just wipe all the black skin off with a damp paper towel. Pull out the stem and core of the poblano. Tear or cut the poblano open, and remove and discard the pith and seeds.
Sautéing the tomatillos and poblanos
Hull and quarter the tomatillos. In a sauté pan over a medium-high flame, heat a half-tablespoon of olive oil (I use a non-stick skillet. For a stainless steel skillet, you'll need two tablespoons of olive oil) to shimmering. Add the tomatillos, roasted poblanos, and a pinch of sea salt and sauté until the tomatillos begin to soften. Once the tomatillos are about half cooked through (you'll be able to tell by the color, which becomes pale as they cook), remove them from the flame and add the lime juice.
Processing the salsa
Pour the tomatillo/poblano mixture into a food processor and pulse it a few times to eliminate the large chunks (nothing in the salsa should be larger than a pea). You want salsa, not a puree.
Sauté the scallops
Rinse the scallops and (if your fishmonger hasn't done this already) remove the tough bit of muscle from the side. In a sauté pan over a high flame, heat a half tablespoon (again, I'm using a non-stick pan; two tablespoons of oil for stainless steel) of olive oil just to the point of smoking. Place the scallops in the oil, reduce the flame to medium high, and leave the scallops alone for two full minutes. After two minutes, turn the scallops. They should be golden brown on the cooked side. Again leave them alone for two minutes. Remove the scallops from the pan, but don't turn off the flame.
Sauté the snapper filets
Divide the filet into three portions. In the hot, scallop-flavored oil, place the filet portions flesh side down and leave them alone for two full minutes. We want these guys browned, too. Turn the flame down to medium. Being careful to keep them intact, turn the filets over and cook the skin side for two minutes. Remove the filets to a holding plate.
Braising the seafood
With a spatula, scrape the sauté pan to loosen any remaining bits of scallop and snapper fond. Pour the salsa into the pan and stir it to incorporate the fond into the salsa. Place the filets in the salsa skin-side down. You want to keep the browned portion mostly out of the salsa. Similarly, place the scallops in the salsa, keeping the best looking side of each scallop up. Allow the seafood to simmer in the salsa for three minutes.
Being careful to keep the salsa off the top side of each, remove the scallops and filets from the salsa. Stir the epazote into the salsa and turn off the flame.
to serve
Pour the salsa into a large serving platter arrange the scallops and fillet portions atop the salsa. This dish goes well with saffron rice, achiote rice, or fresh corn tortillas.
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