Shooting, fishing, house and car maintenance, check! Splurged yesterday at a seafood truck that comes through here every once in a while that has very nice shrimp and fish. I have had the bug for a while now to buy and cook a good-sized whole red snapper. I haven’t had a really nice piece of fish for years. Anyway, brought my very expensive three pound baby home and hadn’t noticed they were just gutted. Not pan-ready. Y’all would have been amused watching me attack fins with poultry shears and there were scales everywhere. Never scaled a fish before. I guess I didn’t watch the fish cleaning lessons too closely.

YouTube is your friend!

Still sounds tasty. Almost nobody else in the house will eat fish, so I rarely get a chance.

Nice! I love red snapper.

1) In Japan as sushi / sashimi
2) Steamed with ginger, scallion and sweet sake/soy sauce and then very hot oil drizzled (sizzle) on top.
3) Coated and deep fried w/ garlic chili sauce poured over.

One of my favorite fishes for the above methods - but I rarely eat it.

Nice, I hope it turned out just like you hoped. I am sure you did well

We just had a Dungeness crab for dinner. Two more cleaned and all the meat removed and frozen for later. It was delicious.



Let us know how it turned out.

My local HEB grocery store has recently started carrying whole fish. They never did before. I went today just for tilapia fillets, but they had whole red snapper, striped bass, catfish, and tilapia. I have only cooked a whole fish once, but want to do it again. At least they descale and gut it.

Red Snapper? Scales everywhere?
Yeah, that's about regular.

(Pro-tip: do it outside, close to a hose, makes clean-up easier )

Not sure about your red snapper. But is filleting it and just fillet the skin off not having to deal with the scales or skin at all? That is how I would do it.

It was really good. Just plain, salt, pepper, butter and lemon, roasted in the oven. Next time I’ll get brave enough to grill it.

Nice

just cook it scales on. "on the 1/2 shell"

quote:

Originally posted by snwghst:
just cook it scales on. "on the 1/2 shell"

I think I’d do that, too- I have, actually. I’m not sure I know how to descale. I just cut it from the inside away from the scales, but I’m more regional here with walleye, etc., so my dad would be my go to on Snapper. I’ve eaten it but never prepped it straight from the water. Either way, it sounds like you ended up with a great meal!

quote:

and there were scales everywhere.

That's usually par for the course, much like plucking feathers from a goose.