Grilled whole fish is an often occurrence at our table. Our usual is seabream that I stuff with parsley and lemon slices. The lemon usually slides out during grilling and grills as well.
I wanted to try this recipe because I had never cooked whole trout and because I was intrigued by the use of just the parsley stems in the fish as I always have lots of parsley stems leftover from other recipes.
As I couldn’t find whole trout or any fish other than bream that was the appropriate size for this recipe, I used two Vermilion Snapper that weighed 650 grams, and 710 grams adding up approximately to the weight requested.
The dill amount in the cucumber salad recipe seemed outrageous until I tasted the salad. The yogurt and the vinegar mellowed out the dill. I liked the cubed cucumber texture and creamy dressing with bits of onion and background lemon taste. I loved the grilled lemon flavour on both the fish and the salad.
What I didn’t enjoy were the three tablespoons of extra liquid in the salad after resting two hours in the fridge. For this issue, I’m suggesting either using Greek yogurt, pre-salting, and rinsing/draining the cucumber before making the salad, or making as is then straining the extra dressing before serving.
In the end, this recipe was very well enjoyed. It wasn’t a “wow” as my family is used to whole grilled fish and as it turned out, seabream is still our favourite for grilling. What I will adopt, is the use of just the parsley stems. These imparted the same fresh aromas and were much easier to remove from the fish, instead of picking out stuck parsley leaves.
With the tweaks mentioned above, this recipe goes from just making it to a TC to a solid 10. The fact that it encourages the cooking of a whole fish gets it bonus points as well!
David Leite
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