Cooked a Snoek last night. It was, unfortunately, a frozen snoek shipped in
from South Africa, but it was still tasty as hell, with a very
distinguishable flavor.

For those who don't know (like me), a snoek is apparently (according to one
website) a type of Barracuda. According to another, its a sal****er Pike (at
least it fillets like one), and according to the slices of fish I got, it
looks like an eel, or maybe a barbel. The slices were about a foot long,
about 1 inch thick, and about 4 inches tall. Very strange. Also very bony,
with two sets of 'Y' bones in the abdomen.

First I had to fillet it...not a simple task, but I managed to get every
bone out and still have abundant meat for dinner. Its a scaleless fish, so I
left the skin on, and scored the skin a few times to reduce curling.

I barbequed the fillets over hot coals, first with the skin side down, and
basted the meat side with an Apricot sauce. (large glob of Mango Chutney,
large glob of Apricot jam, big squirt of honey, dash of vinegar, dash of
olive oil, pinch of salt, spoonful of sugar, dash of soy sauce). Rolled the
fillets over, painted on some more sauce, and let the meat side get
caramelized.

Served it with buttered snap beans and toasted pine nuts, and baby potatoes
glazed in soy and pepper. Washed it down with a nice South African Pinotage.

Yum.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

--riverman