BBQ Fish

BBQ Fish Thai Style

(Par- Paow)

bbq fish recipeJules’s Blurb:  There are many Thai Barbecue Fish styles, this has got to be the definitive Thai BBQ Fish style simply because it’s the oldest traditional method there is (probably on the planet) to barbecue virtually any fish within reason.

It is such a simple recipe it almost does not even require a recipe, however as usual Khwanjai has a few slick tricks up her sleeve to share with our members.

BBQ Fish is mostly served as a snack or part of a Thai Banquet Meal. See serving suggestions below to discover why this is great BBQ party food.

I bang on about using only fresh water fish when in fact this recipe can use practically any fish or seafood, my slip of the tongue.  Be careful when eating this first time, as you’ll see I had a minor mishap which made it difficult for me to speak very loudly towards the end of the video

How to Barbecue Fish Thai Style

Ingredients:
Serves 2 (with rice)BBQ-Fish-Recipe-Ingredients
1 Fish 7-900g (Pretty much any fish will do)
12 Assorted Thai Chillies (pik ki noo)
5-6 Cloves Garlic
2 tbs Sugar
2 tbs Fish sauce
1 tbs Chicken Stock Powder
3-4 tbs Lime Juice
1/3 Cup Chopped Toasted Peanuts
1 Cup Salt
1 Cup Water
Butter or Margarine
Tomato, Coriander and Lettuce and cucumber for dressing

Preparation:
Wash the fish and dry
Peel outer layers off the lemon grass and bash the ends a bit
Stuff 2-3 Stalks of Lemon Grass down its throat and its ready to cook

Prepare Toasted Peanuts as per the Toasted Peanuts Video

Cooking:
You need a mature barbecue ie. Not too flaming hot!
Throw on the whole fish and paint it with butter and sprinkle on salt
Turnover and repeat leave for about 3 minutes and turn back over for another 3 minutes.
Now stand your fish up on its belly for about 10-15 minutes
The next step is to prepare the very special Spicy Sour Sweet Peanut Sauce….. Below

Preparing The Sauce:pestle-and-mortar
Using a Cruk-Sak (Pestle and Mortar) pound the chillies and garlic as per video
Blender?  Our advice?  Don’t do it!  Be very careful not to overdo it if you use a blender, we really recommend NOT using one, it’s too easy to make puree.
Next add 1-2 tbs lime juice, some chicken stock powder, fish sauce and a good tbs of sugar mix well together and do a taste test, adjust as required
Now add some water and mix in the peanuts the resulting mix should not be too watery nor too thick see video Spicy Sour Sweet Peanut Sauce Recipe

Back to the Fish:
Lay it on its side for about 5 minutes, turn for another 5, checking to ensure fully cooked
Timings are relevant to the size and type of fish, the video tutorial gives by far the best turning pointers
Take yer fish off the barbecue carefully and remove the charred skin from one side of the fish then……

Serving Suggestion:
Serve up the fish on a bed of Lettuce on a large plate with sliced Tomato and Cucumber, and a small bowl of the delicious Spicy Sour Sweet Peanut Sauce and you can even serve with hot Jasmine rice but here’s a different very traditional suggestion.

Thais will share a fish like this over a beer or whisky and chat as they dig in to this very tasty BBQ Fish recipe.  Using a piece of lettuce leaf, make a small parcel of fish, coriander and the sauce and pop it in your mouth in one go.  Even when served with rice as part of a banquet they will still use this style of eating in addition to eating with rice

An ideal accompaniment to this Delicious BBQ Fish Recipe is Tom Yum Gung and our tasty BBQ Spare Ribs   It also goes great with Basil Chicken Stir Fry.  For another really nice soup try our Tom Kha Gai.

Also very popular with any barbecue recipe is Green Papaya Salad aka Som Tam

Also in our range of fish tutorials you’ll probably enjoy Fish Three Flavours (Par Sam Lot) with its unique Three Flavour Sauce or Fried Fish with Garlic also with its own unique Sea Food Sauce a spicy, sour and sweet sauce that dances on your tongue and of course this BBQ Fish recipe is no exception with its Spicy Sour Sweet Peanut Sauce.

Unusual blog video BBQ Fish Recipe is available for extra info on our Thai Food Blog

Khwanjai’s Top Tips:
You really should print the recipe for this one, I left a lot out of the recipe, so you will want to make some notes, particularly for quantities…

The main trick in this recipe is plenty of salt, this stops the skin from burning even if you cook an eel..  Also it makes it easy to peel off the skin at the end.

Make sure you have plenty of salt; you’ll see where we edited the film while Khwanjai rushes off for more but see how the delay affected the fish but not a problem for this style of BBQ

I know we always stress this but try to pound rather than using a blender, the pounding bit in the video has about 30 seconds edited out it’s not a big job.  Use a blender, and there is a very real danger of over spicing with the chillies apart from ruining the texture

When making the sauce use all your senses, when you taste test this sauce you literally need to wipe your tongue with the wet spoon, taste and inhale to get the full effect and do this before you add the water and peanuts, it’s in the video, as usual this is stuff Khwanjai explains in more detail afterwards.

We don’t have a 2 tier BBQ (like some posh folk) so if you can’t adjust the cooking height, it’s a good idea to have some ash ready before you chuck the fish on.  You could use a water spray, but be careful not to overdo it or you’ll get steamed fish and thats another recipe! You’ll understand this advice after seeing the video
Done!   Enjoy!

If you ever have any problems with links or notice any glaring mistakes in this recipe tutorial please let us know.  Thank You!

1 comment… add one

Leave a Comment

CLOSE
CLOSE