In this article
- Introduction
- The difference between cooking meat and fish
- How to stop fish sticking to the grill
- Staple ingredients for grilling fish
Introduction
Understanding why a food reacts in relation to heat will help you get the best results. The first, almost the only, question I am ever asked about cooking fish is, ‘but how do I stop it from sticking?!’ It’s the perennial question, and one I can definitely help a little with, but before that it’s super-helpful to explore how fish differs from meat.
The difference between meat and fish proteins
Fish proteins are arranged differently than land animal proteins so they behave differently on cooking. They are shorter and arranged in ‘blocks’ stacked alongside each other in distinct layers, a bit like rows of bricks with thin sheets of connective tissue in between, which we can clearly witness as delicate ‘flakes’ of cooked fish. This allows the fish to move, wave-like, as it swims. By contrast, meat protein fibres are much longer and arranged in bundles, which we see as more strand-like when cooked, for example as in the texture of pulled pork.
The connective tissues and fats that flow between the protein blocks are chemically different too. Fish need to function at way lower temperatures than land animals so their fat is fluid and, just like olive oil, it is unsaturated, so that they can swim in cold water. If their bodies were loaded with solid saturated fat, like beef, for example, they wouldn’t be able to move in the water; they would be rigid.
These differences, without going into too much geeky detail, mean that fish flesh breaks down and is cooked at lower internal temperatures than meat. It also means the temperature range between ‘raw’ and ‘done’ is very narrow, just 5°C (9°F) or so. Which all goes to explain why it is prone to falling apart and easy to overcook. Fish is cooked at 60°C (140°F), a few degrees either side is raw or overdone. With meat, you get a bigger margin to play with, from about 50°C (122°F) in a rather rare steak, to often over 100°C (212°F) in a smoked brisket.
How to stop fish from sticking to the grill
The nature of fish protein – it’s a delicate protein that cooks fast – also means that it tends to be sticky and prone to falling apart. We can do a lot to minimise the impact of this and there are several key elements at play.
Dry the surface of the fish
You need to minimise as much of the water on the fish’s surface as possible, which is why the majority of the recipes here will begin by asking you to rest your fish on a wire rack hung over a tray for a few hours before you cook it. It really, really helps so do try to plan a few hours ahead of cooking.
Clean the cooking surface
You need to make sure the grill bars, the fish cage or the grill tray are squeaky clean, so trays and cages should be washed as you would wash any roasting pan, for example, and grill bars should be burned hot with the fire and scrubbed well with a wire brush before you cook.
Ensure the cooking surface is hot
This needs to be really very hot. If you put a cold fish in a cold fish cage and set it on a hot fire, it will stick. Put a cold fish in a hot cage – it should literally sizzle as you rest it in – it will stick a lot less. It’s that simple.
Ensure the fire is properly hot before you cook over it
Head to page 28 for more on the fire, but briefly I have found that a fire to cook fish well needs to have burnt hot and fully to embers, and then you cook on those embers as they burn down from their peak heat.
Time the turn
Don’t try to turn the fish too soon or the skin will tear. You want to develop a good crispy skin before you move it. Tease a corner with a fish slice and, if it feels stuck, cook for another 30 seconds or so before trying again.
Staple ingredients for grilling fish
- Toasting spices: In all the recipes in Scorched that use spices, I suggest you buy them whole and toast them briefly before using in the recipes. This may seem like a small, skippable step but I urge you to do it. A little gentle heat will ‘wake up’ the aromatic flavour compounds in the spices and just make them taste more spicy. It’s an invaluable flavour-boosting trick that takes less than a minute.
- Salt: I always use Maldon flaked sea salt for general seasoning.
- Olive oil: I favour using a pretty standard extra virgin olive oil for practically everything I cook, unless it’s an Asian dish where I substitute rapeseed or sesame. Good olive oil is one of life’s great pleasures so I save a more special extra virgin oil for dressings and post-cooking drizzles. If I will willingly sip it off a spoon, I will drizzle it with abandon. Think of all those good polyphenols flowing into your body.
- Sea salt: Sprinkling the skin generously with flaked sea salt before cooking also helps to reduce sticking as you create a lovely crunchy little barrier between skin and grill bars.
Lastly, I think perhaps we will need to relax and roll with it a little. This is home cooking rather than Michelin fine dining. So what if we end up with a little tear in the skin here or there, or that we may need to shove and push (a move known as the ‘gronch’ in our house!) the fish slice to release the fillet free with a little more vigour than is ‘perfect’? Will it still taste great? Of that I have no doubt.
