Salty snapper

I used to call myself a sushitarian. That is, I loved to eat raw fish but didn’t particularly like cooked fish. In San Francisco it was easy to assess oneself in this manner, with sushi bars on every 3rd corner of the city (including a nice one the very block we lived on). In New Zealand, however, sushi is not so abundant. So the other day at the waterfront farmer market when Lillian asked to get a fish from one of the boats that pulls up and sells its wares, I thought why not?

Minette and I consulted and thought we might make a dish she had made in the past, where you bake the fish on top of thinly-sliced potatoes. With that in mind, we asked for something thick and firm for baking. The men on the boat suggested a whole snapper. We agreed.

When we got home Minette noticed the latest Cusine magazine was all about fish, and found a recipe for snapper cooked in salt. This conjured up memories of bacalao in Spain, so I jumped on it. The recipe was decidedly simple: stuff the fish with lemon and fennel and then encase it in a meringue of salt (3 egg whites with 1kg of rock salt). Lillian was pretty impressed.

And indeed, the snapper was deliciously soft, juicy, and salty.