Snook is a gorgeous tasting fish, it’s tender white flesh is sooooo good and the season is too short for lovers of this fine creature of the sea. Whenever it is available, I make sure to take advantage. I like to batter it for fish and chips, steam it Chinese style with soy, ginger and scallions or eat it raw in this crudo I prepared for a long lost love. It makes an elegant starter for a group of 8.
Ingredients
- Pickled Red Onion
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp crushed coriander seeds
- 1 tsp crushed pimento seeds
- 200ml water
- 50ml white cane vinegar
- 1 large red onion, sliced into rounds (use the rest in future salads)
Vinaigrette
- 100ml passion fruit juice
- 50ml pickling juice (from above) with seeds
- 1 tsp sugar (optional if too tart)
- 125ml extra virgin olive oil
- ½ scotch bonnet pepper, finely chopped
- 1kg thinly sliced snook, kept cold until ready to eat
Method
- Make a pickling solution in a non reactive bowl with salt, sugar, coriander, pimento, water and vinegar and add the onions. Leave for an hour or so. Remove the pickled onions and reserve some of the picking liquid for the vinaigrette.
- Prepare vinaigrette by whisking all of the ingredients and pour on a platter.
- Lay thinly sliced fish over the vinaigrette.
- Top with pickled onions.
- Spoon over red lumpfish caviar.
- Serve immediately.
Jacqui ‘JuicyChef’ Sinclair, founder of Nyam & Trod, is a British Jamaican award-winning chef, writer, and food culturist. She is a co-founder of Kingston Kitchen, an annual food event supporting food artisans. Jacqui has been an advocate of the Meatless Monday Global movement in Jamaica since 2011. Jacqui’s work has been featured in such publications as the Huffington Post, the Jamaica Observer, Saveur, The Jewish Post and numerous blogs. She has appeared on the Travel Channel’s ‘Bizarre Foods’ with Andrew Zimmern and Food & Wine’s Jamaica episode with Kwame Onwuachi.