Paint-stained roads, dirty walls and the last of the struc­tures around the Sa­van­nah are the fi­nal rem­nants of what was the Car­ni­val sea­son, a time of re­lease, rev­el­ry and to­tal aban­don; as a pre­cur­sor to Lent, which is ob­served as a time where the nu­mer­ous de­nom­i­na­tions of Chris­tian­i­ty en­gage in prayer, fast­ing, re­flec­tion and alms giv­ing.

The most com­mon prac­tice dur­ing this pe­ri­od is fast­ing. While one may fast from any­thing that one en­joys or any­thing one prac­tices in ex­cess, many re­frain from the con­sump­tion of meat, ei­ther on spe­cif­ic days of the week dur­ing the Lenten sea­son or, in some cas­es, for the en­tire du­ra­tion of the sea­son. As a re­sult, there is a marked in­crease in the con­sump­tion of fish at this time of year. For some, this gives rise to a bit of a chal­lenge, which is, how to pre­pare fish dish­es for this forty day pe­ri­od and not get bored by re­peat­ing the same two or three meals over and over again. Well, that’s why I’m here to help.

Ask the av­er­age Trin­bag­on­ian to name a few fish dish­es and you’ll hear these three an­swers most times; fried, baked and stewed. Now, while these three are valu­able in their own right there is a pletho­ra of prepa­ra­tions and meth­ods one can use. Fish is very ver­sa­tile and can be used in a myr­i­ad of ways. Added to that, dif­fer­ent species of fish have vary­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics that can be ex­ploit­ed to bring out the best of each type.

Let’s go to chef school for a bit. Fish is cat­e­gorised in­to a num­ber of types. When it comes to fin fish, there are two main types; flat fish and round fish. These may be fur­ther sub-cat­e­gorised in­to salt­wa­ter and fresh­wa­ter fish and then, fur­ther in­to fat­ty and lean fish. The fat con­tent of the fish de­ter­mines the cook­ing meth­ods that are best suit­ed to each type but there are al­so oth­er fac­tors that af­fect whether a spe­cif­ic cook­ing method is prefer­able or not, such as the size of the cut used for cook­ing, whether the fish has large flakes or not when cooked, whether the bone is left in or tak­en out, even whether the fish is cooked with the skin on or off.

Flat fish in­cludes floun­der, hal­ibut, tur­bot and sole which are not found in our lo­cal wa­ters but may be avail­able for sale at seafood mer­chants. Round fish in­clude salmon, grouper, her­ring, king­fish and mahi-mahi with many lo­cal and im­port­ed types avail­able on the mar­ket. When it comes to salt­wa­ter va­ri­eties, aside from those named pre­vi­ous­ly, lo­cal ex­am­ples al­so in­clude red snap­per, carite and monk­fish. Lo­cal fresh­wa­ter va­ri­eties in­clude cat­fish, eel and tilapia. Of these types, the fish can be fur­ther cat­e­gorised in­to fat­ty fish, such as salmon, trout and her­ring; and lean fish such as tilapia, cod and grouper.

As per­tains to the cook­ing of fish, there are some ba­sic rules due to the na­ture of the beast. The flesh of fish is gen­er­al­ly more del­i­cate than that of meat or poul­try and takes less time to cook. Over­cook­ing re­sults in a tough and ex­ceed­ing­ly dry end prod­uct, so it is rec­om­mend­ed to slight­ly un­der­cook fresh fish. Fish is al­so gen­er­al­ly mild in flavour, so it is rec­om­mend­ed to use flavour­ing in­gre­di­ents that are not ro­bust and over­pow­er the del­i­cate flavours of the fish.

Fi­nal­ly, and this should prob­a­bly have been the first rule, wher­ev­er pos­si­ble use on­ly fresh fish to at­tain the best re­sults. Just as im­por­tant as the afore­men­tioned is that we should on­ly use/con­sume fish­es that have been pro­cured from sus­tain­able sources us­ing sus­tain­able meth­ods and should nev­er use pro­tect­ed or en­dan­gered species.

The fat con­tent of fish ranges from 0.5 per cent to 20 per cent. That be­ing said, one must con­sid­er the cook­ing meth­ods used when prepar­ing a dish with fish any­where on this spec­trum.

Lean Fish

Lean fish con­tains very lit­tle fat, there­fore very lit­tle mois­ture, which means it can eas­i­ly be­come dry es­pe­cial­ly when over­cooked. That be­ing said, moist-heat cook­ing meth­ods such as poach­ing, steam­ing or sim­mer­ing is very suit­able as it pre­serves and adds mois­ture to the fish. A good lo­cal ap­pli­ca­tion of this is our fish broth, an­oth­er is our lo­cal fish stew. Fish such as red snap­per is a great can­di­date for these meth­ods.

Al­though lean fish is at risk of dry­ing out, dry heat meth­ods such as grilling or broil­ing can al­so be used but it proves a chal­lenge for those who are in­ex­pe­ri­enced to at­tain an end prod­uct that is not dry. Be­ing that lean fish lacks fat, melt­ed but­ter can be bast­ed on­to the fish por­tions be­fore cook­ing via dry heat meth­ods to aid in pre­serv­ing mois­ture. More im­por­tant how­ev­er, is the cook­ing time of the fish—this is quite lit­er­al­ly the make or break of the dish when cook­ing lean fish with dry heat meth­ods. A good op­tion for this in­cludes mahi-mahi as it stands up well to grilling or broil­ing.

Uti­liz­ing dry heat meth­ods with fat, such as sautéing or deep fry­ing proves to be very favourable for cook­ing lean fish. The ad­di­tion­al fat be­got­ten from these meth­ods adds mois­ture and palata­bil­i­ty to the dish and makes a very good end prod­uct. Please note though, that de­spite the fat present in the dish the fish may still be­come dry af­ter some time if left to sit. It is rec­om­mend­ed that the dish is con­sumed soon af­ter prepa­ra­tion for high­est qual­i­ty.

Fat­ty Fish

The fat con­tent of this type of fish al­lows them to tol­er­ate more heat and there­fore longer cook­ing times with­out be­com­ing dry. Still, over­cook­ing will ru­in your dish—and I don’t want the blame for that, so let this serve as my dis­claimer. Fat­ty fish do well with moist-heat cook­ing meth­ods and dish­es like poached salmon, steamed trout or mack­er­el sim­mered in a sauce cre­ole.

Dry heat cook­ing meth­ods are great when it comes to fat­ty fish es­pe­cial­ly as it helps elim­i­nate the ex­tra oili­ness. Grilled salmon and tu­na are sta­ples at a num­ber of lo­cal restau­rants while a few lo­cal species al­so stand well to grilling or broil­ing.

Large, fat­ty fish es­pe­cial­ly those with strong flavours like blue­fish and mack­er­el may be cooked us­ing dry heat meth­ods with fat, such as sautéing and pan fry­ing but care must be tak­en to avoid ex­tra greasi­ness. It is rec­om­mend­ed to drain or oth­er­wise get rid of ex­cess oil be­fore serv­ing.

Raw Prepa­ra­tions

In cer­tain cul­tures raw prepa­ra­tions of fish and oth­er seafood is com­mon but there are safe­ty rules that must be fol­lowed be­cause there al­ways ex­ists the risk of food­borne ill­ness when con­sum­ing any­thing that is un­cooked. It must be not­ed that fresh­wa­ter fish is not used for raw prepa­ra­tions as there is a high­er risk for bac­te­r­i­al con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. The most im­por­tant guide­line is to use on­ly fish that is ex­treme­ly fresh and pro­cured from known, rep­utable sources and should be same day caught and nev­er frozen. Com­mon raw prepa­ra­tions in­clude sashi­mi, tartare and ce­viche. Var­i­ous types of fish are used for these prepa­ra­tions and may in­clude lean fish such as cod or even fat­ty fish such as tu­na and salmon as each have unique char­ac­ter­is­tics which add dif­fer­ing di­men­sions to a dish.

Now that you have work­ing knowl­edge of all the won­der­ful things you can do with fish, maybe, just maybe, fast­ing will be­come some­thing you would con­sid­er even out­side of the Lenten pe­ri­od.