Roasted Yellowtail Snapper with Parsley Vinaigrette

Wendy: "Savory. You've been writing too much about sweets. Can you write about something savory?"

Sure, Wen. Here you go (but this one doesn't have any pictures because I lacked the basic understanding that when you cover the flash with your finger, the pictures come out really badly; but this was a terrific meal, picture fiasco notwithstanding):

I had never roasted a whole fish. It seemed like an unwieldy task, something you would do only if you had to -- like deep frying a turkey (the trick is you get someone else to bring and make the turkey while you prepare the other dishes). But I was inspired after reading Keiko's post over at Nordljus and decided to try. So last Friday I ran by the fish market and picked up two yellowtail snappers. When I got home and unwrapped the fish, I realized I had a bit of a problem. The fish was still intact, something I wasn't sure how to handle, having purchased cleaned and gutted fish or filets as a general rule. I went to find Hubby, who was watching the news with his brother, Stan. "Hey do either of you two know how to clean a fish?" I asked.

"I haven't done it since I was a kid," Hubby said. "But just scale it, make an incision underneath and pull everything out. Go to it, woman."

"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi," I said, clasping my hands together. "You're my only hope."

Hubby is nothing if not an indulgent husband. He left his Precious (the remote) and followed me to the kitchen. While I went to pull books off the shelf -- The Farallon Cookbook, The Fish and Seafood Cookbook, The Culinary Institute of America - The New Professional Chef, he disappeared briefly into the guest bedroom. "I'll bet it's in the SAS Survival Guide," he said. This would stand for "Special Air Service," or the British Special Forces. You see the symmetry in our lives, yes? I grab cookbooks. He gets survival guides. The two of us laid our respective books out on the kitchen counter and began flipping through. Hubby checked out the contents of his book: "Shelter/Making Camp. Arctic Plants. Jungle Plants. Hunting." Meanwhile, the Farallon cookbook had beautiful pictures, but no instructions. Neither did the Fish and Seafood Book. "I bet I find it in here faster than you'll find it in yours," he said. And then, "Aha! Here it is! Fishing. Okay. Make an incision from here to here. Remove the offal. Look, here's a picture. And this is how you scale a fish."

I grabbed one of the fish, ready to gut but found that the fish had already been gutted. "Hey! The fish guy cleaned it for me already."

"Okay, so just scale it then."

"What do I use?"

Hubby started cackling with glee, a sound which worries me. It usually precedes something that goes boom, makes big noise. Or, it involves a first aid kit. He ran out of the house and came back with what amounted to a Swiss Army knife on steroids. He opened one of the thousand blades, which looked like a miniature saw blade and said, "Fish scaler!" He grabbed one of the fish, threw it into the sink and proceeded to scale the fish.

Apparently, the more violence you apply to scaling, the greater the trajectory of fish scales in the air.

"Aaaauagh!" I wailed, waving my arms overhead, trying to deflect the snowstorm of scales. "Let me do it! Let me do it!"

He handed me the knife and the fish. I remembered a colleague mentioning using a spoon to scale her fish so I asked him to hand me one on his way out of the kitchen. The spoon works much, much better. So does scaling gently. Even so, the kitchen countertop looked like it had a bad dandruff problem.

I found a recipe in Food and Wine magazine that sounded terrific (and it was) and served the fish with an arugula salad, and roasted purple potatoes.

My freshman effort at roasting a whole fish wasn't nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be; my freshman effort fileting and serving the fish is a different topic altogether. Clearly, the SAS survival guide was not written with table service in mind.

I think I'll try this again.

Roasted Yellowtail Snapper with Parsley Vinaigrette

1 3 1/2-pound whole red snapper, cleaned and scaled
8 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 large sprigs rosemary
2 tablespoons wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

Heat the oven to 450°.

Rinse the fish and dry the surface and the cavity thoroughly with paper towels. Put the fish on a baking sheet and cut shallow incisions about 1 inch apart in each side. Rub the fish all over with 1 tablespoon of the oil. Sprinkle both sides with the garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and the 2 teaspoons lemon juice. Put the rosemary in the fish cavity. Roast the fish until just done, about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small glass or stainless-steel bowl, whisk together the 1 tablespoon lemon juice, the wine vinegar, the mustard, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, and the pepper. Add the remaining 7 tablespoons oil slowly, whisking. Whisk in the parsley.

Serve on a platter.

Comments

[keiko Oikawa]

Hi Cath - such a lovely post, I can imagine exactly what was happening in your kitchen! Although cooking fish as a whole is very common in Japan, I'm not very good at gutting/fileting. Your snapper sounds really delicious, I'll definitely try it. Oh, and my Obi Wan Kenobi isn't as helpful as yours ;)

[Cath]

Hi Keiko - yes, the kitchen was as slight disaster afterwards. I'm still finding fish scales in weird places, two weeks after the fact! I think my Obi Wan came out to help me just for the chance to use his ridiculous Swiss Army knife. ;-)

[Jennie]

You can ask the people at the fish market to clean/scale it for you.
If you have to do it at home for whatever reason, do it like I do...outside the back door on some newspaper. You don't need a fish scaler, either...you can use a fork or a knife.