Fish on the grill, looking for tips

[Minnie1222]

Do you have an air fryer? Unless it's salmon or tuna steak, I cook all of our fish in the air fryer now.

Salmon and tuna we throw on the smoker.

Fish is expensive here because, well, land locked. I can see the OP spending $30 on fish for a family of four.

My mini oven has an air fryer function, but I'm scared to use it

What's a Smoker?

 

[leebee]

This is what we use for fish as well as for veggies. DH sprays it with Pam for Grilling. I find thicker fish work best, or fish with skin. Sometimes I marinate it (we like teriyaki for salmon) or brush with olive oil and sprinkle with herbs/spices. We eat some kind of seafood every week, usually more often than that in the summer.

 

[NotUrsula]

Simplest method if you're not used to grilling fish is a flip basket, like this one: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Baywell-...ables-Outdoor-Barbecue/813938091?from=/search

You'll want to thoroughly spray it with PAM before use, but to clean it after, we just soak it in soapy water for an hour or so and then clean it with a grill brush; not difficult.

Firm-fleshed fish, like salmon, cod or pelagic species, can easily be grilled cut into skinless fillets, but if you want to grill more delicate-textured fish, like trout, redfish or mahi, it's best done with the fish cleaned but whole, head removed, or at least with the skin intact.

Another method you can use to cook fish that keeps down the odor is to bake it en papillote. This method is especially effective for skinned filets of the more delicate types.

One more thing: fresh fish has essentially no odor when raw and not very much while cooking unless you fry it. Fish with a strong odor is usually past its prime.

 

[fla4fun]

Quick story: I always used an inexpensive…as in Walmart, Toaster oven. One year for Xmas, my wonderful boss of the company I worked at gave me a $250 gift card to William-Sonoma. I had never shopped there. Didn’t know what to buy and meandered around and around. Then I spotted a Breville Convection Oven with a price tag of $250!
Perfect! I figured it would relieve me of trying to figure out what to buy, plus if there was money left over, I’d have to figure out what else to buy.

Holy cow! I LOVE this Toaster Oven!!! It does everything except shop for the food. It’s a dream.

i have a Breville Smart Oven and I love it as well. I use it more than my microwave and stove put together. I don’t eat seafood or fish, but I am sure it could handle it well.

 

[DVCjj]

i have a Breville Smart Oven and I love it as well. I use it more than my microwave and stove put together. I don’t eat seafood or fish, but I am sure it could handle it well.

Yes on use it a lot! I even toast our cut bagels in it. (and it's in our finished basement as I don't have much counterspace in our smallish home). I love it so much I go up and down stairs. Everything I've put in there cooks insanely fast and excellent. What a great gift I got. I would never have known how much I needed it.

 

[BayouQueen]

Just on foil on the grill is great. Baskets are a mess to clean.
For years we bought the cedar planks for salmon. Truth is, the fish isn’t on the grill long enough to pick up any cedar flavor. We tried the foil and that was it — never again to the wood planks.
You can put flavorings on the fish on the foil — butter and lemon, whatever you want. Easy to cook and easy to clean up.

 

[Imzadi]

Wrap in foil, cook about 20 minutes, this method is very forgiving.

I wrap my salmon in parchment. Add a few drops of water to help steam the fish, along with salt, pepper, lemon juice, dill & a little sugar. The parchment seems to seal in the smell a bit.

 

[lanejudy]

We use a grill tray like some other posters have shared. I also tend to put foil on for easier clean up. Thicker fish grills better.

DD is particularly fond of cooking "fish in a paper bag" -- or En Papillote as another poster mentioned. It's just wrapping up the fish and veggies together in parchment paper.

 

[Cadiewampus]

Do you have an air fryer? Unless it's salmon or tuna steak, I cook all of our fish in the air fryer now.

Salmon and tuna we throw on the smoker.

Fish is expensive here because, well, land locked. I can see the OP spending $30 on fish for a family of four.

Expensive here in Georgia even with our coast. If you want grouper or halibut you are going to pay $15to $25.00 a pound

 

[NotUrsula]

Expensive here in Georgia even with our coast. If you want grouper or halibut you are going to pay $15to $25.00 a pound

For Grouper, anyway, that has a lot to do with the price of marine gas. To catch large Grouper off Georgia, you have to go out close to the Gulf Stream, which is mostly at least about 70 or so miles offshore. Also, mature grouper are quite large, so that requires heavier gear as well.

Halibut is a cold-water species, so you need to think about how far it is from where you are to where they are, which in this case is off Massachusetts and New Jersey, mainly. That's a long distance up the coast.

I always tell people that if you want to eat fresh fish affordably, it's important to know what species are caught in local waters. If you're inland that is either going to be lake fish or stream fish, or a farmed species.

Of course, your best way to eat fish affordably is going to be to catch it yourself, but if you don't happen to have access to a boat, your inshore or freshwater variety is going to be pretty limited.

 

[mjkacmom]

i have a Breville Smart Oven and I love it as well. I use it more than my microwave and stove put together. I don’t eat seafood or fish, but I am sure it could handle it well.

We have a large toaster oven/air fryer (ninja maybe?), does the breville fit a 9 x 11 pan? I need toaster ovens I can cook in.

 

[hrhdhd]

Of course, your best way to eat fish affordably is going to be to catch it yourself, but if you don't happen to have access to a boat, your inshore or freshwater variety is going to be pretty limited.

We have a boat. It's more affordable to buy fish at Publix.

 

[NotUrsula]

We have a boat. It's more affordable to buy fish at Publix.

Yeah, affordable is a variable thing. My dad always caught our fish, but he had a small trawl setup, so he usually got about 500 lbs. of it for the price of a tank of gas. You don't do nearly as well with a rod & reel. (A few months back I was having dinner in Gulfport, FL & saw a guy net 4 marine coolers worth of Drum in one toss of a cast net off the side of the dock. *That* is truly affordable, but I've never had that kind of luck.)

 

[hrhdhd]

Yeah, affordable is a variable thing. My dad always caught our fish, but he had a small trawl setup, so he usually got about 500 lbs. of it for the price of a tank of gas. You don't do nearly as well with a rod & reel. (A few months back I was having dinner in Gulfport, FL & saw a guy net 4 marine coolers worth of Drum in one toss of a cast net off the side of the dock. *That* is truly affordable, but I've never had that kind of luck.)

Sounds like he was over the bag limit.

 

[NotUrsula]

Sounds like he was over the bag limit.

Yeah, he was; he & his buddy packed those suckers up and were gone in 10 minutes.

 

[Minnesota!]

Growing up, my mom always did orange roughy and walleye on the grill. She'd put it on tin foil, with some holes poked in it.

Fish was coated with a thin layer of mayo, then lemon slices, paprika, and dill. Always perfect.

Yum, now I'm craving it.

 

[Stratman50th]

Two YouTube channels I follow are Brooke Crist, and Landshark Outdoors. For the most part their videos are "Catch, Clean and Cook". The recipes look very good and many are on the grill. Although most are easy, we haven't tried any as I'm allergic to garlic and they think it's an extra vegetable! Finally, they are a couple and engaged so you'll obviously see overlap in their videos. Very nice young people posting wholesome videos.

https://youtube.com/@brookcristoutdoors
https://youtube.com/@LandsharkOutdoors

 

[Praying Colonel]

I marinade salmon in a mix of soy, brown sugar, chili garlic paste and a little sesame oil, then grill for about 4-5 minutes on each side.

 

[John VN]

.......................................... (A few months back I was having dinner in Gulfport, FL & saw a guy net 4 marine coolers worth of Drum in one toss of a cast net off the side of the dock. *That* is truly affordable, but I've never had that kind of luck.)

Sounds like he was over the bag limit.

Yeah, he was; he & his buddy packed those suckers up and were gone in 10 minutes.

Black drum
They are bottom dwellers found both inshore and offshore, and adults grow to 30 pounds, with the Florida record weighing 93 pounds. They live to more than 35 years of age. There is a 14- to 24-inch slot limit, and five fish per fisher may be taken daily. One fish greater than 24 inches may be taken daily.

 

[NotUrsula]

Black drum
They are bottom dwellers found both inshore and offshore, and adults grow to 30 pounds, with the Florida record weighing 93 pounds. They live to more than 35 years of age. There is a 14- to 24-inch slot limit, and five fish per fisher may be taken daily. One fish greater than 24 inches may be taken daily.

I didn't say it was a good thing in terms of being responsible or law-abiding, just that it was an incredibly lucky toss, and if he was using them to feed family, he had just netted a month's worth of food for 30 minutes work. The fish he took were all pretty small (which with Black Drum is a good thing; the larger ones are more likely to have a lot of worms.)

Personally, I do obey limits, but I'm not all that angered if individual saltwater anglers go over-limit fishing off a pier, as long as the catch isn't a threatened species. They are small potatoes, and quite a few of them are fishing to eat. (I think it's rather significant that Florida doesn't require a personal license to fish off a Iicensed pier, and they also exempt anglers who are over 65 &/or qualify for food stamps.) I save my sustainability judgements for people who use longlines and trawlers offshore to go over limit.

(FWIW, my dad did run a small trawling rig, but he was fully licensed for it, and was scrupulous about sustainable practices and never going over limit, and used turtle excluders long before they were required. I can remember as a small child being delegated to find and toss all she-crabs overboard as quickly as possible while my elder siblings helped handle the net. Very few crabbers back then bothered to do that.)