South African · Main
Snoek op die Kole
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light, richness that coats and comforts, opening aromatic and staying there.
Ingredients
- 1 whole snoek of about 2 kg, gutted and split flat down the back
- 40 g coarse sea salt
- 100 g smooth apricot jam
- 80 g butter
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste
- 30 ml brown grape vinegar
- 1 lemon, juiced, plus wedges to serve
- 1 tsp coarsely cracked black pepper
Equipment
Grill
The skills inside
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · fish
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Salt the flesh side of the split fish heavily, leave it 30 minutes, then rinse and pat it absolutely dry; a wet surface is what welds a fish to the grid. 30 min
- Melt the butter with the apricot jam, garlic, vinegar, lemon juice and pepper into a loose, pourable smeer and keep it warm at the side of the fire.
- Burn the fire right down until the coals are grey coated with no flame licking through, then oil a hinged grid and clamp the fish in it skin side down.
- Grill skin side down, a good hand span above the coals, for 15 to 20 minutes, brushing the flesh with smeer every few minutes once the surface has turned opaque; the skin should blister and char in patches. 20 min
- Flip for only 2 to 3 minutes to set the glaze. It is done when the thick shoulder flesh lifts away from the two rows of pin bones in one clean sheet; serve with lemon and roosterkoek. 3 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Grilling over live coals 77 recipes
- The fire was ready before the food was: coals evenly covered in grey ash with no flames licking through and no raw smoke coming off, and a hot zone and a cooler one both available.
- The grate was hot and clean when the food landed, and the food released cleanly from it when the time came to turn rather than tearing away.
- Marks are browned, not burnt: deep colour where the metal touched, with no carbon flaking off and no soot transferred onto the food.
- The interior reaches its target with a thin gradient, not charred outside and cold within, and not driven through by a flare-up.
- What comes off the fire smells of fire and food only: no raw wood smoke, no fuel, nothing acrid at the back of the nose.
Where it goes wrong It went on over live flames instead of settled coals, so the outside charred bitter in the flare-ups while the middle stayed cold, and everything on the plate tastes of soot.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Albariño or Muscadet
- Also Right
- Assyrtiko or Vermentino
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with lemon
The Atlantic’s whites beside the sea’s own liquor: salinity in sympathy, acid keeping everything bright.
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