The Trouble of Tipping the Scales

Dear Tamar:

How do u cook fish on the grill? Do you use a fish pan, with the holes? Does fish go directly on grill? Should you spray the grill? How does it not dry out, and not stick? HELP…

Thank you!

-Tipping the Scales

Dear Tipping the Scales,

I’ve been thinking about kinesthetics—muscle memory—recently. I wrote about this a few weeks ago. For physical activity outside the kitchen, my body acts surprised—even slightly insulted—at being drafted into action, while my mind, overeager beaver that it is, gets more involved than it should.

Your question directed my attention to a grey area—cooking that happens outside, over the direct heat of a grill. Is it still second nature, I wondered, if I don’t have the reliable comfort of pots and pans? That is the crux of it: take our confidence level in the kitchen—whether low or high—and complicate it. This contemplation summoned a mental picture of Giacomo Tincani, who grills fish as though he were born doing it.

Giacomo is from Lake Garda and Milan, and spent months on the Ligurian sea. He knows the names of more fish species than I knew existed, and can spot differences among them that are invisible to anyone but a fisher- or mer-person. Giacomo can find bait anywhere, scraping limpets from rocks, and seems to sense where fish cavort under placid surfaces. Though I try to remind myself to study his manner and decision making carefully whenever we’re together and he cooks, I instead end up admiring his facility for it—how much it seems like second nature—and lapsing into lazy appreciation instead of active learning.

Thinking about muscle memory and Giacomo has been useful. Unless I do little else for my remaining years, I’ll never cook fish as naturally as he does. But I’m inspired to consider the decisions that I make when I cook inside, cooking pasta for spaghetti al pomodoro, for example—which I’ll do later—or frying tofu, or roasting potatoes, and imagine making similar ones on a hot grill.

I’m always attentive to an ingredient’s moisture. If the tomatoes I add to my pan of murmuring oil and garlic later don’t contain much liquid, I’ll add a pour of water to the pan. Tofu, on the other hand, must be quite dry before being fried. I wrap mine in a double layer of towels and weigh it down for 15 minutes before I even think of cooking it. Along similar lines, I will not trouble a cube of frying tofu, or a wedge of roasting potato, until I see a caramel color starting to rise up its sides, indicating that the frying or roasting surface has browned. I’m liberal with olive oil. Every now and I again, my hand is too heavy, and the resulting oiliness is enough to set me straight for months, before I slip again. Doneness I ascertain by cutting-into, or cutting-open, and tasting. There is no situation in which I don’t do this. Food will be tasted; it’s too bizarre to imagine putting it on the table without used the very senses my guests will be using.

I do the above without thinking. Which means that the thinking happened long ago. Giacomo must have once thought through his fish cookery. It is practice that lets thinking collapse into the decision-making that looks automatic. Moisture, and fat, and heat then, are the areas on which to practice. Dry fish very well, with a cloth or paper towel, inside and out. A fish with skin can go directly onto the grill. If it is without, a piece of intervening foil is prudent. The fish must be well oiled, as must be the grill—or the foil—it goes on.

As to heat: Practiced cooks use high heat with bold, almost rash, confidence. The fire must be very, very hot for a grill to get truly clean—which it must be to avoid fish sticking. It must be still quite hot to let fish skin cook evenly. It must even be moderately hot once fish is flipped for its last minute of cooking on its second side. The point is: hot, hot is the temperature, and reservations will lead to sticking. Fish should only be flipped once its skin is caramel brown. This can be seen, even without picking a piece of it up with a spatula, by looking closely for any hint of brown beginning to creep up the side.

As to when grilled fish is done, you must learn to identify what this looks and smells and feels like by tasting it for now. This is how one learns to see and smell and feel when food is done—by tasting, then noticing how it looks and smells and feels at that moment. There is no faster way, and no more direct way. Any assigned number of minutes will sometimes be right and sometimes be wrong, and you’ll be no closer to knowing for yourself.

Dear cook, I’ll never be as graceful as Giacomo around a hot fire and fins. But I know each time I practice, I get closer. The same holds for you. The scales will tip, each time you dry a filet, oil it well, and place it boldly on a clean, hot, oiled grill. And they will continue to tip each time you employ those vital ingredients: practice and faith, and faith and practice.