Red snapper baked in the sauce of the port of Veracruz: tomato, onion and garlic with green olives, capers and pickled chiles, the Spanish pantry meeting the Mexican one. Made with a whole fish for a table, or fillets on a weeknight.
Serves 4Prep 25 minCook 45 min
Can't find Huachinango?
Loup de mer — Monkfish tail is used as a substitute for sea bass in stews and roasts due to its firm texture — monkfish is denser and more robust, sea bass more delicate.
Corvina — Both are firm white fish popular in Latin American ceviches and grilled preparations — red snapper has a sweeter flavor, corvina is milder.
Grouper — Both are firm, white, mild-flavored fish from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean — grouper is meatier and thicker-fleshed, red snapper is sweeter with more character.
Rabirrubia — Both are Lutjanidae snappers from the same Gulf and Caribbean waters — yellowtail snapper is more delicate and lighter-fleshed, red snapper is firmer and more intensely flavored.
Rockfish — Pacific rockfish is routinely sold in the US as "Pacific red snapper", but true red snapper is a Gulf and Caribbean Lutjanidae — sweeter, firmer, and considerably more expensive. Rockfish is the honest budget stand-in for snapper preparations, not the same fish.
Besugo — Both are premium red-skinned whole-roasting fish with sweet white flesh — red snapper is firmer and more tropical, besugo finer and more delicate.
Ingredients & method
Ingredients
1 whole red snapper (huachinango), 1.5 to 2 kg, scaled and gutted, or 4 fillets of about 180 g
Juice of 2 limes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
60 ml olive oil
1 large white onion, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 kg ripe tomatoes, chopped, or 800 g canned whole tomatoes, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
2 sprigs fresh thyme or marjoram
100 g green olives (manzanilla), pitted and halved
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
3 or 4 chiles güeros en escabeche (or pickled jalapeños), plus 1 tablespoon of their liquid
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
White rice, to serve
Method
1Rub the fish inside and out with the lime juice, salt and pepper. Leave it while you make the sauce. For a whole fish, cut 2 or 3 shallow slashes on each side first.
2Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Cook the onion for 6 to 8 minutes until soft and translucent, then add the garlic for 1 minute.
3Add the tomatoes, bay, oregano and thyme. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until the sauce has thickened and lost its raw taste.
4Stir in the olives, capers, chiles and their liquid. Simmer 5 minutes more and taste for salt; the olives and capers bring a lot.
5Whole fish: heat the oven to 190 °C (375 °F). Lay the fish in a baking dish, spoon some sauce into the cavity and the rest over and around it, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the flesh at the backbone is opaque and flakes.
6Fillets: nestle them into the sauce in the pan, spoon sauce over the top, cover and simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes.
7Rest 5 minutes, scatter with parsley, and serve with white rice to take up the sauce.
Cook this well
$$ · filleting, skinning, and trimming whole fish
Fillet a whole fish without wasting half of it
Following the bones and contours of whole fish with a narrow, flexible blade.
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Chef's tip The sauce is better made a day ahead. Any firm white fish takes it: Gulf red snapper is the classic, and Pacific rockfish, sold in the US as "Pacific red snapper", is the honest budget stand-in.
Cook this later?Save the recipe, then keep notes on what worked and what you'd change next time.
