This recipe is so easy that even if you've never made whole fish (that was Tony and I before today) or you've never set foot in the kitchen, you can do this.
I contacted Roshan from Kitchen_Guerrilla (check out their instagram page!) last week and he was kind enough to send some homemade sauces. He was also super kind and super duper patient while walking me through this recipe and answering all my detailed (read: obvious/amateur) questions.
The best part about this recipe is that you only need two ingredients:
- Sea bream or red snapper (Roshan recommended sea bream because it has less bones)
- Kitchen Guerilla spicy jerk marinade (1/3 bottle)
Recommended sides:
- Jamaican coleslaw (we substituted with the 7 grain kale salad which worked really well since it had a creamy dressing - super creamy is important!)
- Plantain chips
- Lime
- The fish was frozen so we brought it home and thawed it out in warm water. Roshan said not to do this - always thaw fish in cold water. We might've lost some flavour here but the fish still ended up tasting amazing, lesson for next time.
- Cut slits into fish - this makes it easier for the marinade to absorb. We cut 1/4 into the fish at 45 degree angle spaced at 1 inch. Not sure if this is the right way to do it, but it turned out amazing so there's that.
- Pour the spicy jerk marinade on to the fish and massage into the slits, also stuff inside.
- Place fish in freezer bag, pour liquid into bag and place in refrigerator for 2 hours.
- Remove fish from freezer bag and place on baking rack. Pour remaining liquid in bag over the fish.
- Preheat oven to 400C and place fish in oven once heated. Bake for 25 minutes.
- Broil for 2 minutes or until brown - this was probably the trickiest part because we wanted it be crispy but we also didn't want to leave it in there for so long that it dried out the fish.
- Remove fish from oven, place on serving tray and serve with coleslaw, plantain chips & 2 wedges of lime.
Tip (courtesy of Roshan): Taste the fish, plantain chip & salad in one bite. It's literally a party in your mouth and you'll be asking yourselves: did we just make this?! All the different textures and flavours work so well together and is SO GOOD.
Tony and I took a vacation to the Bahamas in 2015 with a few of our friends. The food at the resort was horrible so we ventured out and found a Jamaican pepper pot restaurant. We fell in love with it at first bite- they served the most amazing jerk fish and we ate there for the rest of our trip. This dish brought back so many memories of that trip and especially the amazing fish we had there.