Whole Red Snapper

Trying to plan in advance, I started checking my usual grocery stores for whole red snapper weeks before it would show up on the menu. Good thing, too, because none of them carried it. I then made several phone calls and found a couple of stores in neighboring towns that did. However, they only had 2-pound fish; Wayne wanted one that was 5-6 pounds. When I called again the day before it was on our menu, one of those stores had a fish in stock that weighed over 3 pounds. It wasn't easy, but I convinced Wayne that it would have to do, and we enjoyed our special dinner of Baked Red Snapper.

However, part of the convincing was that we would have to try the recipe again with a five-pound fish, although it could be a different variety. This time, Wayne took it upon himself to call the fish markets, and he finally found one that even had a large red snapper. It was a bit of a field trip - all the way to South Miami - but it was a gorgeous day for a drive and we got another delicious dinner out of it, with enough leftovers that I won't have to cook for a few days!

In case you ever want to try Pargo Asado yourself, here's what you do. First, rinse out the fish and pat it dry. (Actually, the very first step is to cut off the fins, descale the fish, and remove the guts, but the nice butcher took care of that step.)

Cut a couple of slits on the sides, sprinkle with salt, and rub with a mixture of minced garlic, oregano and pepper. Pour lemon juice (from 3 lemons) over the entire fish and stick in the refrigerator to marinate for a couple of hours.

Remove the fish from the pan and pour some olive oil on the bottom. Layer sliced potatoes, onions and tomatoes on the bottom, then top with the fish and drizzle more olive oil on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. (That's for the 6 pound fish, the 3 pound one took about 45 minutes.)

Carefully peel the skin and meat off of the bones. (I found a tutorial that showed how to do that.) Serve with the vegetables, although you may not be hungry after picking the meat out of the head during the deboning process.

A whole fish is meant to serve more than two people. First, we had regular leftovers for a couple of days.

Then we tried some very delicious fish tacos! This version had corn and cabbage; here's one with lettuce and avocado. I think mango would taste great in them as well!

The extra lemon--flavored vegetables were a terrific addition to a Creamy Tomato Soup. I invented my own creation - puree the leftovers with a can of tomatoes, some heated chicken broth, seasonings and a bit of cream - but here's one of my inspiration recipes.

Note: The chart on this website came in handy when trying to figure out how many calories in a serving. Whole red snapper, with head on but gutted, is 40% meat.