I don’t remember us roasting fish too much while I was growing up. My mom usually curried king fish steaks or fried fish for us. It wasn’t until I got to Florida that I became attached to eating roast fish from my Jamaican friends. And I became addicted. I don’t really like to eat fish any other way now and when I do there is no sharing with anyone. It’s unfair to share.
Roast fish is usually done on the grill but can easily be done in the oven (as I did)
This dish is a Jamaican street food. You get a fish wrapped in foil and dive in. No sides are needed. Just you and yuh fish and a little seat somewhere.
It amazes me how huge the flavors are in the fish with just a little preparation and a few ingredients
There is no set script to getting this done. Though there are some basic requirements (onion, thyme, salt and pepper) you can throw anything that is available into this dish and go. You are free to experiment and get a combination of herbs that suits your tastes.
Ensure when you are getting your whole fish (I always use snapper) that it’s a decent enough size and see if you can get your butcher (or fisherman depending on where you are) to clean the scales up for you. I detest scaling fish and always let them do it.
Try to get a fish that has a decent enough cavity so that it can be stuffed. For the filling, I used onions, scallions, thyme, corn, ochro and fish flavoured soup mix.
I used salt and papper to season the fish after I washed with lime and patted dry. You would see that there are two slits (on each side). I put them there so that the salt and pepper could get under the skin a bit while it is baking.
We then add our chopped up and mixed ingredients for the filling and stuff the fish already placed on foil that it’s going to be wrapped in.
I also add any leftover filling on the top of the fish
Then I wrap it into its own little pocket so that it can steam in the flavors
This can also be done on a grill which gives you that nice charred outer versus the baked version.
After an hour of baking
Fish is roasted and is smelling amazing.
I normally don’t eat this fish with anything else. I would probably eat half in one sitting *shame face*.
And normally I don’t even take it out the foil. This dish is predominantly a street dish of Jamaica and is served in the foil it is roasted in.
