Sunday, January 13, 2008

Gone Fishin'

Beware vegetarians, vegans and queasy omnivores. There is imagery here that may not be pleasing to some of you. We had the luck of catching a large and tasty mutton snapper (which despite the name taste nothing like mutton) while I was at home over the holidays. This is a fish that would have cost me around 80 dollars at Whole Foods. Of course, when you catch a fish for free, it has to be cleaned before any cookery can take place. While I have many years of fish cleaning experience, my brother did the task this time around.

Then I laid her out on some foil while we stoked a nice fire in the stove.

I rubbed the snapper all over with fresh ground black pepper (from the farm), salt, lime juice, (again, from the farm), and Marie Sharps hot sauce. I stuffed her with onions and her roe, topped her with more onions, and a friend's home made salsa, and for a special touch included a couple allspice leaves in the wrapping.

Then I sprinkled the fish with a drizzle of olive oil, folded up the foil and placed the packet right on the burning hot metal surface of our wood stove, where she roasted up into a delicious feast. The subtle flavour from the allspice leaves complemented but did not overwhelm the fish. We enjoyed our snapper with locally grown brown rice, a coleslaw and some fried bluggo bananas from the farm.


P.S. I promise that I will return to regularly scheduled programming soon, but I have so many culinary adventures to regale you with from my trip home that I thought I would run with it as long as possible.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds so fresh and delicious -- yum!

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  2. Pa-lease! What regularly scheduled programming? Girl look show me all the food you had home and tell me all the things you did :)

    I smiled when I read this: While I have many years of fish cleaning experience - yeah me too. It's one of those things my mom encouraged us to learn to do. Hey Lyra, we got some skills eh? :D

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  3. Dana: it was fabulous. Nothing beats the freshest fish imaginable.
    Cynthia: thats right! And I have noticed that even today, with all the exposure to food from outside the USA, many Americans don't like eating a fish where they can see the head. As we say in Belize-thats the best part!

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