Delicious red snapper fillet

Delicious red snapper fillet recipe

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True confession: I love snapper, but I’ve never prepared snapper fillet. I’ve often enjoyed it at restaurants or events; however, I haven’t made it myself. As a typical Dominican, I like to cook the whole snapper, including the tail and head—where all the yummy stuff lives.

Growing up, when the fishermen in my village would bring in the day’s catch, no one in the group promoted a fillet version of snapper. Folks would buy the entire fish and maximize every bit of it. And yes, the head was the most coveted part.

I was introduced to filleted fish when I moved to Canada.
Since then, I’ve prepared most of my fish filleted and deboned, except for medium to small “Caribbean fish” My goal is to create a more authentic Caribbean experience.

Although my husband has joined me on the whole snapper—whole fish bandwagon, he’s often very cautious whenever I prepare cooliw or snapper. He mulls over our eight-year old’s plate, ensuring that no bones escape his sight. My husband certainly prefers filleted fish since he thinks that the bones are way too dangerous and time-consuming, especially for kids.

Our parents were brave back then, allowing us to fight our own battles of the bones. I remembered my mom would tell us if we encountered a bone in the throat, chase it away with a generous piece of provision, like dasheen, plantain, or better yet, dumplings. I’d encountered a few bones in my lifetime, but nothing that a good piece of starch couldn’t handle.

I’ve already passed on that valuable lesson to my whole fish-eating children. I hope they never need to use the emergency piece of starch, but they’ll know exactly what to do if they are met with this unfortunate circumstance.

So over the weekend, I decided that I’m going to try to prepare red snapper fillet. I stepped into my local Whole Foods and gasped at the sticker tags of $24.99 for a pound. I could have gone to my regular fish market ($6.99 per pound of the whole snapper), but they were out of the large red snappers, and I needed a nice large piece to make this special dish.

The menu included pumpkin rice, which I’ve not had in a while. I had picked up a lovely pumpkin at the market that I was dying to use. I also had lobster and wanted to add some to the dish. I rounded up the menu with some tomato on vines and added some microgreens for garnish.

This red snapper filet dish wasn’t only pleasing to the eye but delicious.

Here’s how I created this dish.