Crispy Skin Snapper (Tāmure)
I am definitely heading down a rabbit hole here and without a doubt I do love the clean fresh unadulterated taste of all our seafood. I have been practicing less is more in terms of cooking fish, and to that extent it is salsa and chimichurri that has my attention at present.
Fresh, herbaceous and full flavours as a side hustle to the main event allow you to enjoy all aspects of your meal as you choose.
Snapper still abundant in the gulf finding a weather window is the trickiest part of the whole adventure. With suitable specimens onboard, Iki’d, (despatched quickly using a spike to brain) and soaking in an ice slurry it is time to make the Salsa. They are many many versions and I implore you to play with whatever ingredients you have in your galley. For this occasion, we built the salsa into a bowl with:
Ingredients:
- 2 long glugs of a nice EV olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves diced and mashed (or through a garlic crush)
- A generous cupful of your favourite herbs fine diced (for this we used Coriander, broadleaf parsley and spring onion)
- 21 capers diced and mashed
- ½ a small red onion diced finely
- 1 anchovy fillet diced and mashed
- Juice of a lemon/lime
- Drizzle of Avocado Oil
- Optionally add a diced chilli and some fresh pepper. The capers and anchovy bring enough salt in my opinion, but taste as you build.
Naysayers will opt to put it all in a Nutribullet or similar “whizzer”, but I prefer to mix well by hand and a good heavy mortar and pestle is the ideal low speed no heat kitchen aid there is. Now with that complete let all at the Salsa party get to know each other whilst the Snapper is prepared.
Remove scales from the snapper, whip the fillets off, “v” cut the pin bones out, towel dry the fillets and depending how big they are or what portion size you want, cut them to a size to suit.
Into a cold pan add a drizzle of avocado oil, add your fillets skin side down. Now turn on heat to medium (130-145C) and as the pan heats up gradually the fat layer between the skin and the flesh with render out and add luscious flavour at the same time.
As the skin cooks it will tighten pulling the sides of the fillet in. Very important at this stage to hold downward pressure on the fillet to ensure all the skin gets even contact with the pan.
Depending on the size of your portions it may take 3 to 6 minutes to cook the skin side, use your eyes to gauge and you are looking for crispy skin and at least one third of the thickness of the portion cooked. The flesh will change colour and become opaque from the bottom up, that is your visual indicator of how far through the flesh is cooked. At this stage gently turn the portion over and finish cooking by halving the time it took to cook the skin side. Remove the portion from heat on to a paper towel on a warm plate. Let rest for 2 minutes then serve. Resting allows for the heat to continue through and just cook out the flesh while retaining moisture.
Now plate up as fancy or as simple as you like either with the salsa on drizzled across the top or as a ready to dip side hustle. Don’t forget the obligatory salad stuff…..or not, snapper is a sea vegetable so I think you are covered!
Kia nui te kai!