After last Sunday’s ‘scorpion in the frying pan’ encounter, there’s been a bit more ‘what the hell are we doing down here in Texas’ chatter from certain members of the household.
While our business project that led us to the south for a couple of years is coming along quite nicely, watching spring fight to get a foothold back home in Southwest Montana has made the entire crew pang for the spring green of home.
While at times it’s a tough battle to keep the crew content and productive, microbrews from home and good food continue to offer a very reasonable distraction.
At least on the culinary front, fresh western Gulf seafood in particular continues to offer significant solace.
This week we stumbled across this outrageously good prep for grilled red snapper – Red Snapper with Lime and Chipotle Chile Butter.
Red snapper is a perfect fish for the grill, is mildly flavored, takes well to additional spice (critical in our world) and is priced reasonably enough to make you feel your not squandering the entire household weekly food budget for a single meal.
This is another very easy, quick to prepare recipe. More importantly it’s major Southern style comfort food – green chile cheese grits would make a perfect side and probably even make the Southern Culture on the Fly guys smile.
And you can once again channel your inner Paula Deen and slather on the chipotle butter. You’ll be saying yall in no time.
Lime Marinated Red Snapper
2 limes, juiced
3 tbs olive oil
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
6- 6 to 8 ounce red snapper filletsChipotle Chile Butter
10 dried chipotle chile peppers
2 pounds unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 tbs fresh thyme, chopped
1 and 1/2 tbs fresh basil, chopped
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Make the chipotle chile butter. Wipe off the chiles and place in a small saucepan with the red wine; bring to a boil then quickly remove from the heat. Let the chiles soak for an hour.
Then place the butter, chiles, thyme, basil and Worcestershire sauce in a food processor and coarsely puree. Form the butter into a log (on plastic wrap), cover with the wrap, and freeze.
Marinate the red snapper. Mix together well the lime juice, olive oil and fresh ground pepper. Pour over the snapper fillets and flip the fillets to ensure both sides are covered. Marinate in the fridge for an hour (no longer as the lime juice will begin to ‘cook’ the fish).
Grill. Over a preheated (medium) grill, grill the red snapper for 3 or so minutes (average sized fillet) per side. Plate the fish and top with big slice of the chipotle chile butter just as you’re serving.
You’ll be amazed at how nicely this simple prep works; it’s a breeze to set up and will flabbergast the famdamily.
Enjoy.
Tags: Friday Feast
