Whole Fish | Imamother

Soph

Mon, Sep 06 2010, 10:31 pm

in latin america we eat a lot of whole fried fish... the fact that its fried gets out a lot of the fishy flavor, its very very good..crispy outside moist tender inside...yum (be careful with the bones!!)

descale the fish and empty it (yuk), was it with milk (yes I know sounds weird but its a secret to getting the smell out, then rinse it very well..) then wash with lemon juice and rinse again, pat dry inside and out
season outside and inside with salt, pepper, minced garlic, garlic powder and parsley (can be dried), then coat with flour, shake of the excess and fry, on medium low heat so that it cooks all the way.
serve with lemon wedges... here we eat it with a sofrito sauce kinda thing you can stuff it with it also...

sofrito...
in a medium skillet on medium heat place olive oil, one big onion sliced thin and 3 tomatoes sliced thin, season with salt pepper and garlic, cook until the tomatoes come appart and its all mushy. (it reduces a lot so adjust to the amount you want)

Mrs Bissli

Tue, Sep 07 2010, 2:06 pm

It depends on what kind of fish and the size. For whole salmon, I like poaching it with the skin on. Skin slips off easily when serving. You can use doubled disposable large foil pans instead of a poaching pan. For the poaching liquid, you can combine water with dry white wine, season with sliced onion rings, pepper corns, dills, celery, carrot rings etc. You can lift the fish easier if you wrap it in a cheese cloth (at least partially).

Or for something like seabass, I'd like to bake in the oven till the skin gets crisp. You can stuff with regular breadcrumb/cubed bread stufing like then one you use for turkey. Tarragon is nice with fish--gives sweet anise-like very subtle flavour.

Soph, pre-washing with milk won't work with us as we are sephardim and don't mix fish & milk. But absolutely right about removing the scales and guts. (I usually ask the fishmonger to do the dirty job).