Grilled Picarel (Smarida)

Cleaning the fish

1. It’s worth noting that in Bulgaria, especially on the Black Sea coast, locals are very inventive when it comes to cooking fish. I can’t forget “tsatsa”, the deep-fried Black Sea anchovy. Or fried gobies with ice-cold beer. Or the wonderful grilled mackerel, or the exceptionally tasty breaded Black Sea spiny dogfish.

   

   Grilled perch is easy to cook, but it needs some preparation.

   

2. First, scale the fish. I confess I thought cleaning a Black Sea perch would be as hopelessly hard as cleaning one from the Kyiv reservoir. It isn’t. Picarel is quite easy to clean, about like an ordinary Dnipro roach.

   Just don’t rush or use too much force, because picarel flesh is soft and delicate and tears easily.

   

3. Cut the heads off the scaled fish and gut them. Rinse under cold running water. Let the excess water drain: leave the fish on a plate for 10-15 minutes, then pour off the liquid.

Marinating

1. Put the fish in a deep bowl. Season with coarse non-iodized or sea salt and pepper, add a little ground ginger and coriander, and sprinkle with dried herbs.

   

2. Transfer the fish to a non-reactive container (glass, ceramic or enamel) and pour over a mixture of 1/2 cup of dry white wine (100 ml) and 2-3 tbsp of lemon juice. Refrigerate the fish for an hour.

   

4. After an hour, pour off the marinade and pat the fish dry with a paper towel. Brush the fish with a little olive oil.

   

Grilling

1. From here, as they say, there are options. The first option, and the better one, is to grill the picarel on a rack over hot coals. But, unfortunately, a charcoal grill isn’t always at hand.

   We’ll cook the grilled perch in a grill pan I bought recently: a square pan with a handle, a strongly ridged bottom and a non-stick coating. I’ll say up front that it was a good purchase, a very good one.

2. Heat the grill pan over high heat. The grill pan should be dry, so don’t oil it. Add the fish brushed with olive oil.

   Important: the perch must lie in a single layer, without touching each other and without being moved while frying, so the stripes from the ridged bottom stay on the fish.

   

3. Turn the heat down to medium and fry the perch for 5-6 minutes without moving them. You can gently press the fish against the bottom with a spatula from time to time so they get nice stripes from the pan or grill.

   

   Turn the fish over and fry for the same amount of time, until golden stripes form; the flesh by the backbone should turn white and opaque.

   As the perch cook, a little olive oil runs off the fish and adds more oil to the pan.

Serving

1. Put the fish on a plate and squeeze lemon juice over it. Grilled perch goes wonderfully with lemon.