Why I Love Whole Fish
When I first got into spearfishing, years ago, I was extremely daunted by the idea of making a whole fish. I don’t know why, but I thought it required way more knowledge and skill than it actually did. I soon realized the whole process is actually quite simple and yields amazing results.
Fast forward to now, this is one of my favorite ways to prepare smaller fish, because you can prep everything while you’re out diving. If I’m planning on using the fish whole, I always make sure to bleed, gut, and scale the fish before it ever comes out of the water. This makes it easy when I get home because all I have to do is pull the fish out of the cooler, dry it off and cook it!
How I Got This Fish
I actually got this porgy on the same haul that I got the Spiny Lobsters I used in Spicy Korean Spiny Lobster Bites and Florida Spiny Lobster Knuckle Head Soup! I was out diving with my buddy, Eddie, and we were forced to do some shallower dives because the visibility and current were bad.
There are always porgy in the area that we were diving and I was thinking about doing a his and hers whole porgy for Valentine’s Day. My girlfriend, Brittany, loves whole fish, and even though I was only able to get one porgy that day, I still made her one for Valentine’s Day.
The Components Of This Whole Fish Recipe
The first component of this recipe is obviously the fish itself. For this recipe I’m using a porgy, but just about any other type of smaller white fish will work. The key point is you want to make sure the fish has been bled, gutted and scaled. After that, you can dry age it in your refrigerator for a few days, I did 7 for this one. This is what is going to allow the fish to develop more flavor and become extremely tender.
The second component is cooking the fish. For this recipe, I decided to use a combination of pan searing and steaming the fish. This method kind of gives you the best of both worlds; crispy skin and juicy meat that pulls right off the bone.
For the sear I did 2 minutes on both sides, making sure to move the fish around in the pan while cooking so it didn’t burn. For the steam, I did 4 minutes. One key thing is to make sure you use a big spatula to remove the fish from the pan to make sure it doesn’t come apart. Another note to add is that the cooking time will depend on the size of your fish!
The third component is the garlic shishito chili oil. This is going to add an incredible depth of flavor to the fish, and also serve as a dipping sauce for meat that you pull off. The avocado oil is a neutral oil that really takes on the flavor of whatever you add to it. You can control the amount of heat by the amount of red chili flakes you add.
The final component of this dish is what you serve with it. I’ve always been a big fan of shishito peppers so I figured why not serve this whole fish with them? If cooked properly, they’re the perfect balance of fresh and hot. If you liked this recipe, check out why you can do with the leftover bones in my Drinkable Porgy Fish Bone Broth Recipe.
I hope you enjoy this Dry Aged Whole Fish recipe:
Dry Aged Whole Porgy
Equipment
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
One response
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The best Valentine’s Day present ever!
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