Recipe
Portuguese-Style Roasted Red Snapper
Serves
4
Active Time
25 MIN
Origin
ALENTEJO
During tomato season, there are no bad cooks.
— PORTUGUESE SAYING
We could have given this recipe the simple name of Baked Fish, since it applies to any thick, whole fish or to a large, thick slice of fish. In Portugal, the preferred fish for roasting are red snapper (especially the true red snapper), various types of sea bream, sea bass, hake, and more recently, monkfish. Recipes from the 1930s by various authors indicate ways of roasting fish where it is coated before going into the oven with a paste made of olive oil, crushed tomato, garlic, paprika, white wine, salt, and pepper—similar to what is customarily done with certain meats like pork, kid goat, and lamb. Inserting pork fat (toucinho) into slits cut on the back of the fish was also a common practice. The recipe transcribed below is currently the most commonly used both at family tables and in restaurants. If you have a demanding palate, give preference for this dish to more intensely fruity olive oils, such as those from Moura or Trás-os-Montes, though any other virgin olive oil with different characteristics works well.
THE RECIPE
Ingredients
Serves 4
- 1 red snapper (pargo) of 1.5 kg
- 2 large onions
- 1 kg of ripe (but firm) tomatoes
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 sprig of parsley
- 1.5 dl of extra virgin olive oil
- 4 strips of previously salted pork fat (toucinho)
- 1 dl of white wine (medium-dry)
- Salt and pepper
Preparation
After the red snapper is scaled, cleaned of viscera, and has the tips of its fins trimmed, wash it inside and out. Make a few diagonal cuts along its back. Season it with salt and pepper. Cut the onions into thin slices and the tomatoes into slightly thicker slices. Arrange the onion at the bottom of a baking dish that can go from the oven to the table. Over the onion, scatter the sliced or crushed garlic, the bay leaf broken in half, the tomato, and several sprigs of parsley. Drizzle everything with 1/3 of the extra virgin olive oil and place the red snapper in the baking dish. Insert the strips of pork fat into the cuts on the fish's back, drizzle the fish with olive oil, and add half of the wine. Place the snapper to roast in an oven preheated to 180 °C, basting it frequently during roasting with the remaining olive oil, wine, and the juices that form in the pan. While the snapper is roasting, boil small unpeeled potatoes in salted water. Peel them and place them around the red snapper when it is almost completely roasted. Serve the snapper in the dish it was cooked in, sprinkling the potatoes with finely chopped parsley.