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Gas-Grilled Blackened Red Snapper Recipe - America's Test Kitchen
If using fillets that are 1/2 inch or thinner, reduce cooking time to 3 minutes per side. If using fillets that are 1 inch or thicker, increase cooking time on second side by 2 minutes, moving the fish to the cooler side of the grill after the second side has browned. If you cannot find red snapper, striped bass, halibut, and catfish can be substituted. Making the slashes in the skin requires a sharp knife. If your knife isn’t sharp enough, try cutting through the skin with a serrated knife. However, cut in one direction (don’t saw) and be careful not to cut into the flesh. If you choose not to eat the skin, be sure to remove it after cooking rather than beforehand. Serve fish with lemon wedges and our Rémoulade or our Pineapple and Cucumber Salsa with Mint (see related recipes).
Gas-Grilled Blackened Red Snapper
Serves 4
We moved our blackened snapper project outside to keep the smoke from triggering alarms, but this created several other issues: The fish stuck to the grate, the outside burned by the time the flesh cooked through, and the skin-on fillets curled midway through cooking, resulting in burned edges.
We wanted our fillets to have a dark brown, crusty, sweet-smoky, toasted spice exterior, providing a rich contrast to the moist, mild-flavored fish inside.
The curling problem was easy to fix. We simply needed to score the skin. The sticking solution proved more difficult, but the answer turned out to be right before our eyes—the aluminum pan that held our grilling utensils. By inverting the pan over the grate while it preheated, we made the grill super-hot. This heat incinerated all the nasty gunk on the grate and gave us a really clean surface on which to cook the fish. Finally, to give the fish its flavorful "blackened but not burned" coating, we bloomed our spice mixture in melted butter, allowed it to cool, and then applied the coating to the fish. Once on the grill, the spice crust acquired the proper depth and richness while the fish cooked through.
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