Pescado a la Talla (Contramar’s Red and Green Grilled Snapper)

Preparation

1. Step 1

   Prepare the red sauce: Place all the chiles in a small saucepan and add 1 cup water. Over low heat, bring to a simmer then remove from heat, cover and let the chiles soak and soften for 15 minutes.

2. Step 2

   While the chiles soak, make the green sauce: Place the garlic, parsley, oil, cumin and salt in a blender and purée until smooth, about 1 minute. (If you have a larger blender, you may choose to use a smaller food processor instead, in order to purée the mixture.) Transfer to a bowl, and rinse out the blender.

3. Step 3

   Finish the red sauce: To the rinsed blender, add the chiles with their soaking liquid and the tomatoes, onion, garlic, whole cloves, oil, orange juice, lime juice, achiote, cumin, oregano and sea salt and blend until smooth. Taste and add more salt if needed. (There will be more sauce than needed for the fish, about 4½ cups, so store it in a sealed container in the fridge for a week or frozen up to 3 months. Use as you would any other salsa.)

4. Step 4

   Prepare and heat a grill over medium or heat a grill pan over medium. Brush the cooking surface with oil to prevent sticking.

5. Step 5

   Pat fish dry, if necessary, then score the flesh side (not the skin) of the butterflied fish in a crosshatch pattern, cutting about ½ inch deep, with each cut about 1 inch apart. If using fillets, score the flesh side of each too. Lightly season the scored flesh with salt. (If using a smaller fish or smaller fillets, the crosshatch pattern may be cut less deep, about ¼ inch.)

6. Step 6

   If using a butterflied whole fish, spread about ½ cup of the red sauce on one of the scored sides, and spread the green sauce on the other scored side, covering the entire surface and working the sauces into the knife cuts. If using fillets, spread about ¼ cup red sauce on each of the scored sides of two fillets, then spread ¼ cup green sauce on each of the scored sides of the other two.

7. Step 7

   Grill the fish or fillets skin-side down until almost cooked through, 7 to 10 minutes, keeping the top of a gas grill closed between flips. Using a spatula, flip the fish, grilling until the flesh has char marks and easily releases from the grill or pan. (If the fish or fillets curl up, you may need to maneuver the snapper with tongs so that all the flesh touches the grates and gets some char; this may increase the cook time a few minutes.) The fish is done when the insides are no longer translucent and the flesh is slightly flaky.

8. Step 8

   Transfer fish to a platter or plates, flesh-side up. Serve with warm tortillas, a bowl of refried black beans, whatever salsa you wish and lime wedges.