Hi ..

Today I faced a really weird problem while cooking a snapper fillet, the fish fillet curled so hard although I pressed on it with a spatula to prevent it from doing so, I know that fish will curl sometimes but I never saw something like this. The fish was also too hard and tough to the point that it was almost impossible to cut without a knife. This was a complete disaster as the fish was basically inedible !

The fish was so fresh, in fact I caught it myself the same day, it was a beautiful large snapper about 3 kilos and it is sad to see it go to waste. I read somewhere that cooking fish while in rigor is wrong and it can make the fish tough but I never imagined something like this.

Do any of you guys have any ideas about the subject ?

Yes indeed fish can be TOO Fresh, And it is excatly what happened, I also fish, usually for trout and it has happened to me before, you have to let it go back to it's pliable self and then proceed. Snapper will curl up a bit anyway especially if you scale it and cook it skin on, if you do so it is best to score the skin with a sharp knife just deep enough to cut the skin every 1/2 inch , it will help and also makes a nice pattern on the fish when you serve it skin side up.

Good to know , thanks alot. And yes I did cook it with the skin on because I wanted to get it to crisp up unfortunately with the curling the skin didn't touch the pan long enough for it to crisp up.