Today we are going to get a little messy. We are grilling and eating a whole fish and
messy is the only way I know how to eat it. If you’ve been to a restaurant where a waiter
fillets a fish for you table side and wondered how on earth are you going to do that at home.
I wonder the same thing. But what you’ll lack in elegance, you’ll make up for in
tasty morsels. Some of the tastiest parts of the whole fish: the collar, the cheeks,
the belly often go back to the kitchen because there is no elegant way to get to them without
getting messy.
The fish I have for us today is a Mediterranean bass that’s normally sold in the US under
its Italian name -- branzino. It’s just over a pound and perfect for serving 2 people.
Though I can easily eat the whole thing all by myself.
Here is what I’ve asked my fishmonger to do. Remove the guts and the gills. Scale the
skin and trim the fins. I meant for them to just trim them with kitchen shears, but they
really went to town here. Not ideal, but we’ll manage.
Before we do anything with our fish, let’s preheat the grill. You need your grill to
be extremely clean and extremely hot. On a gas grill, here is how to do it. Cover the
area where you plan to grill with a double layer of foil. Don’t wrap it tightly around
the grill grate, in fact it helps to mold the foil slightly so that it hovers right
above the grill grate. Under no circumstances should you wrap the entire grill grate. For
safety reasons, you need good air circulation. The first time you do this, keep a very close
watch on your grill. Some people never disassemble and clean their grills inside, which means
that they have a whole pool of grease sitting under their grates. You don’t want that
grease to ignite. Some grills react very well to this technique and some don’t. Cook’s
Illustrated published it years ago and it has served me and many other people extremely
well, but I’ve also heard of this technique backfiring (no pun intended). Now preheat
your grill for 20 minutes and pay absolutely no attention to that useless thermometer on
the lid. It knows what’s happening on the lid, not what’s happening on the grate.
While our grill is preheating, let’s make a little glaze for the fish. It’s completely
optional. Simply coating the fish with oil works. Grate 1 garlic clove on a microplane
zester. Mine is so big that I’ll only use half of it.
Add some chopped herbs. I am using oregano and thyme, but rosemary, or savory would also
be great.
A dollop of dijon mustard and some olive oil to bind it all together. This glaze gives
the fish great aroma and acidity. At first the oil and mustard will separate, but if
you keep whisking you’ll get a smooth and creamy mixture. If you happen to be in possession
of my standard grilling glaze that you’ve seen in so many of my grilling videos (see
the link below), that works too. But in case you are getting tired of it, this is another
option.
Dry your fish thoroughly with paper towels inside and outside. Wet things don’t brown
well and stick to the grill. I can’t emphasize this step enough. If you don’t want to leave
all the skin on the grill, the fish needs to be dry. Sprinkle it with salt all over.
Inside, outside, everywhere. A little pepper would be nice too. And rub a thin layer of
glaze all over the fish both inside and outside.
I like to wrap the tail in a piece of foil so that it doesn’t burn. Otherwise it becomes
completely charred and breaks up into tiny black pieces on your plate.
After 20 minutes, everything on the grate will turn to ash and your grate will get really
hot. The hotter the grate, the faster you’ll get browning and the less sticking you are
going to have. Remove the foil, quickly but thoroughly clean the grate with a brush, and
rub it with an oiled paper towel. Not once, not twice, but 8 times. This is like seasoning
a cast iron skillet and makes your grate non-stick. Do this quickly and only oil the area where
you’ll be placing the fish.
Fish on the grill. Cover. And cook for 4 minutes. Periodically check up on your fish to make
sure it’s not flaring up too much. If it is, turn down the heat. Let’s see if we’ve
got color. We sure did. Never shove a spatula under the fish or you’ll rip it’s skin.
Lift it very slowly and gently with the tongs and place the spatula under it. Then pull
back and push it over to the other side.
Same thing on this side. Cook for about 4 minutes. Let’s check for color. Looks nice.
Brown and crispy. To test if the fish is cooked through, stick your tongs or a knife into
the thickest part near the head. If you can easily get to the bone, but the meat near
the bone is still stuck to it, and feels a tad raw, that’s the perfect time to take
the fish off the grill. As the fish rests it will finish cooking. If you are cooking
a very large fish and it’s not cooked through by the time it’s completely brown, turn
down the heat so that it doesn’t burn.
Gently lift the fish with tongs, just don’t pinch it with tongs so that you don’t rip
the skin, slide the spatula under, support the heat, and move it to a plate to rest for
10 minutes. I took this opportunity to take pictures.
Now that the pretty part is over, let’s get to work. Ideally, I would give a small
fish like this to each person and they take it apart themselves. If you are taking it
apart for people, it’s best to do this for close family who don’t mind you touching
their food and sneaking occasional bites.
First cut the skin of the top fillet all around the back side, the tail, the belly side, and
the head. We need the skin to be completely free, so that we can lift off the top fillet.
Slide a fork underneath, help yourself with some second utensil, in my case a spoon and
lift it off onto a plate.
Chances are you got all sorts of bones in this fillet. Flip it over and inspect it for
rib bones. They are big and run along the belly. Gently scrape them down and remove.
You might also have a few pesky little pin bones in the thicker part of the fillet. Just
poke around with your fingers and remove whatever you’ll find.
I try to salvage every little bite of the meat in this area. The belly is one of the
best parts, and yes, you might need to get in there with your hands if you want to eat
it.
The hard triangular area near the head is called the collar (I can never pronounce it
correctly in English). It’s full of tasty morsels if you don’t mind picking them out.
Cleaning out the collar is not particularly hard since it doesn’t have any little bones.
So it’s pretty obvious what to eat (the soft stuff) and what not to eat (the hard
stuff). Check the back of the head, it’s loaded with tasty meat.
This flap near the eye holds a cheek. On larger fish, it’s one of the best parts. Branzino
is small, so its cheeks are tiny, but still worth rescuing.
The tail is too bony to bother with, so I just remove it. By the way, all the discards
are going into a pot and I’ll be turning them into fish stock.
Now lift the backbone from the tail to the head.
Get out the meat in the back of the head,
get out the second cheek
and then say bye-bye to your fish head.
There is a bony fin that runs along the back of the fish. Scrape that off and discard.
There is another fin that runs from the bottom of the belly to the tail. Scrape that off
and discard. Scrape the rib bones off the belly and discard.
Separate the collar.
Check for pin bones. And our second fillet is done. I want a piece of the belly.
All we have left to do now is eat all this lovely stuff inside the collar on the other
side.
And that my friends is all there is to cooking and eating a whole fish. To make fish stock,
cover the bones by an inch, simmer gently for 45 minutes and strain.
Here are more culinary tutorials for you to check out and if you are ever in the Boston
area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.