Pescado Zarandeado (Nayarit Fire-Grilled Butterflied Fish)

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Butterfly the fish through the back, or ask the fishmonger for it opened 'en mariposa, por el lomo' — that request is standard on the coast and is the one piece of work worth handing off. To do it yourself, lay the scaled and gutted fish on a board and, with a stiff boning knife or heavy kitchen shears, cut down one side of the dorsal fin from tail to head, riding the blade along the top of the backbone and out over the rib bones until the fish opens like a book. Stop at the belly skin and do not cut through it: that skin is the hinge, and if you breach it the fish becomes two fillets that will fall apart over the fire. Split the head lengthways with a heavy knife so it lies flat, leave the backbone attached to one side — it holds the fish rigid and feeds the flesh as it cooks — and scrape out the dark blood line along the spine with the tip of a teaspoon until the channel runs clean and pale.
2. 2 Dissolve the 105 g coarse salt in the 3 litres of cold water in a large bowl or clean bucket, submerge the opened fish, and brine for 20-30 minutes at cool room temperature (below 20°C/68°F). That is roughly seawater strength, which is the point — it is the modern stand-in for the seawater soak the fish got in Mexcaltitán, and it firms the flesh so it does not shred in the basket. Do not push it past 30 minutes or reach for a stronger brine: the flesh is thin once butterflied and it goes ham-like and unpleasantly salty fast, and there is more salt coming in the adobo. Lift out, rinse briefly under cold water, and pat the fish bone-dry on both sides with kitchen paper — it should feel tacky, not slippery, because wet flesh steams instead of taking the adobo.
3. 3 Toast the guajillos and chipotles on a dry comal or heavy cast-iron skillet over medium heat (surface around 180°C/350°F), pressing them flat with a spatula for 15-30 seconds a side, until the skins turn matte, go slightly pliable, and smell of raisins and tobacco. Pull them the instant any wisp of acrid smoke appears or the flesh darkens past deep red — a scorched guajillo turns the whole adobo bitter and there is no rescuing it, so bin them and start again with fresh chillies if it happens. If you cannot get dried chipotles, 2 chipotles from a tin of chipotles en adobo is the accepted swap in home kitchens all along that coast; add them straight to the blender, untoasted.
4. 4 Put the toasted chillies in a bowl, pour over the 500 ml of just-boiled water, and weight them under a small saucer so they stay submerged — any chilli that bobs above the water stays leathery and will not blend smooth. Soak for 20 minutes, until they are completely limp and a piece tears without any snap. Lift the chillies out, reserve 60 ml of the soaking liquid, and taste that liquid first: if it is bitter, throw it out and use 60 ml plain water instead, because bitterness at this stage only concentrates on the fire.
5. 5 Blend the drained chillies with the garlic, achiote paste, oregano, black pepper, fine salt, 80 ml of the lime juice, Worcestershire, soy sauce, 3 tbsp melted lard and the 60 ml reserved soaking liquid on high for a full 2-3 minutes, until the adobo is glossy, deep brick-red, and coats the back of a spoon like double cream. Push it through a medium sieve with a ladle and discard the solids — skipping the sieve leaves flecks of guajillo skin that char to bitter black specks on the grill. It should taste sharp, smoky and firmly seasoned straight off the spoon, but not searing: the fish has already been brined, and this is spread thin over 1.5 kg of it. (The mayonnaise-and-mustard slather you see elsewhere is the Sinaloa version of this dish; it browns nicely but it is not Nayarit's, and it buries the chillies.)
6. 6 Set aside 60 ml of the adobo in a separate bowl for basting before any of it touches raw fish, and thin it with the remaining 1 tbsp (15 ml) lime juice — basting later from the bowl the raw fish sat in is the one hygiene mistake this recipe can make. Cut three shallow slashes, about 5 mm deep, across the thickest muscle behind the head on each side so the adobo reaches below the surface. Lay the fish flesh-side up in a tray, spread two-thirds of the remaining adobo over the flesh and into the slashes, turn and coat the skin with the rest, then cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Do not exceed 3 hours: the lime begins to cure the surface and the flesh turns opaque and chalky before it ever sees the fire.
7. 7 Light the 2 kg of lump charcoal in a chimney and let it burn 15-20 minutes, until the top coals are glowing and just filming over with grey ash, then tip it out, spread it two coals deep across two-thirds of the grill, leave the last third empty as a safety zone, bury the two wood chunks in the bed and let it settle for 10 minutes until every coal is ash-grey with no black patches. You want a grate temperature of 200-230°C (400-450°F) — you should be able to hold a hand 12 cm above the grate for 3-4 seconds and no longer; if you can hold it 6 seconds the fire is too cool and the fish will dry out before it colours. Wood is not a garnish here, it is half the flavour, so a gas grill or an oven will give you a tray of baked chilli fish rather than this dish. Take the fish out of the fridge while the fire settles so it comes up to room temperature and cooks evenly through to the spine.
8. 8 Rub the hinged fish basket hard on both faces with kitchen paper dipped in the remaining 1 tbsp lard or oil, then close the fish inside it, clamping just tight enough to hold the halves flat without crushing the belly hinge — over-tighten and you squeeze the juices out through the slashes. Set it flesh-side down over the coals for 4-5 minutes without moving it, until the adobo has stopped looking wet and has set into a dry, tacky crust that no longer smears when touched with a fingertip, and the thin edges are just catching. This short first side is what stops the marinade sliding off into the fire later.
9. 9 Flip so the skin faces the coals and cook for 16-20 minutes more, lifting the basket and swinging it clear of the fire every 3-4 minutes to rotate it 180° so the hot spots move around under the fish — that back-and-forth is the zarandeada the dish is named for — and brushing the reserved basting adobo over the upward flesh each time. Keep the skin side down for the whole of this stage; flipping back and forth tears the crust. If flames flare up from dripping fat and adobo, swing the basket over to the empty third of the grill for 30 seconds until they die down, and never squirt water on the coals, which throws ash straight onto the crust.
10. 10 Start checking at 20 minutes total: the fish is done when an instant-read thermometer pushed into the thickest flesh alongside the spine behind the head reads 57-60°C (135-140°F) and the flesh parts into large moist flakes under gentle pressure from a fork, while the skin has blistered and lifted away from the meat in patches. Snapper of this size takes 20-25 minutes in total; a thinner fish can be done in 18. Taking it past 63°C (145°F) is the single most common way this dish is ruined — the flesh goes cottony and dry and the whole point of the fast, hot fire is lost, so pull it at the low end and let carryover finish the job.
11. 11 Lift the basket off the fire and let the fish rest inside it, still clamped, for 5 minutes on a board — the juices redistribute and the flesh firms just enough to release cleanly instead of shredding. Warm the corn tortillas on the comal or directly on the cooling grate while it rests, about 20 seconds a side until they puff and go flexible, and stack them in a cloth. Open the basket over a warm platter and use the lower grid itself to slide the fish off in one piece; do not try to lift a butterflied fish with tongs or a fish slice, because it will tear along the backbone.
12. 12 Take the platter straight to the table with the warm tortillas, onion rings, cucumber spears, lime wedges and bottled chile sauce, and let everyone flake the fish off the skin with their fingers into tacos, squeezing lime as they go. A cold lager and a bowl of frijoles puercos or plain white rice on the side are all it needs; anything more elaborate competes with the smoke.

// CLASSIFICATIONS