Fresh Corn Salsa with Grilled Snapper

I was recently going through some of my stuff in a storage box in a room of our house that we call "Mike's messy place". The room is exactly what its' name suggests, the room where I don't have to clean up after myself. It is always in some state of chaos, sometimes more, sometimes less.

While going through the box I came across two or three of those red hard-bound diaries and a stack of paper, folded in half with dates on each fold with an appetizer, soup and entree special hand-written on each one. Basically about 2 1/2 years worth of specials from when I was a chef at Nasturtium, the restaurant that my wife and I owned in San Francisco.

A flood of memories came rushing in from good to bad. Busy days where we were as busy as we could handle to slower days to the decision to close the restaurant.

As I read through the descriptions, no recipes really, just descriptions of what I had come up with to serve each day.

When I got to work each day, I would have no idea what my special would be that evening save for the fish and meat that would be the centerpiece of each dish.

I could picture almost all of them in my mind and knew that I could make nearly all of them again just as I had when I had come up with them.

That was one of the great emotions and great memories that came to me that day. I remembered walking into the cooler each morning and looking around to see what was available that day for the evenings' specials.

That is the way we did it each day. See what was there and come up with three new recipes to serve that night.

Today I knew that I had some red snapper to cook for dinner tonight and a few ears of corn that were left over, untouched, from the gluten free fried chicken and mashers that my wife had made for last nights' supper.

Looking through the refrigerator I found The fish, the corn, half an orange bell pepper, a shallot, a purple Cherokee heirloom tomato, some other tomatoes, some limes and parsley.

I had it. Now how to cook the fish. Grilled or seared? Grilled was the thing that rang out more loudly in my head.

Here is what I made: Grilled Red Snapper with a Slightly Spicy Corn Salsa.

Recipe:

3 ears corn

1/2 orange bell pepper

1 purple Cherokee tomato (diced)

1 vine-ripe tomato (diced)

1/2 shallot (minced)

1/2 lime

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp mild chile powder (New Mexico)

kosher salt

black pepper

Lets' get started!

I start by cutting the kernels off the cobs by standing them each upright and cutting down next to the cob. Here is a video showing how to do this:

You can use fresh corn, which in all honesty is the best way as long as it is very sweet which is more often the case late in the season. In this case I was working with some very sweet cooked corn. Another variation is to grill the corn to give the salsa a smokey characteristic that is delightful.

Place the corn Kernels into a bowl.

All of the knife cuts I use in this recipe can be seen in my knife skills 101 post so check there if you need more direction: http://tastelikechicken-whatsmikecooking.blogspot.com/2012/02/knife-skills-101.html

The next ingredient to prep is the diced bell pepper. It is important to make the pieces the same size as the corn kernels. First remove the ribs of the pepper, slice it lengthwise and then across all the slices to make little cubes.

Add this to the bowl with the corn.

On to the tomatoes. These should be roughly the same size as the corn and bells. The method is the same but with one extra step. Slice the tomato.

Stack the slices and cut them into strips

Turn them 90 degrees and cut again. Voila! Little cubes.

Add them to the bowl.

Remove the leaves from the parsley stems. You don't want the stems, just the leaves.

Mince the parsley leaves and add them to the bowl.

The shallot comes next. Peel the shallot, cut it in half. Reserve one half for another day and mince the shallot by cutting parallel slices about 80-90 percent of the way to the root end, rotate 90 degrees and slice very thinly.

Add the shallot to the bowl.

Squeeze the lime. Add the apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and pepper.

Mix the salsa and taste it to see what you've got. Adjust the seasoning to your taste.

Light the grill. When the coals are coated in a thin layer of ash, you are ready to cook the snapper.

Add kosher salt and pepper to the snapper and some oil. I use a 25% canola/ 75% olive oil blend that I make myself for this step. There is no need, or really any reason to use extra virgin olive oil in this step as you will lose all of the flavor that you paid for with the extra virgin when the oil heats on the grill.

Make sure that you flip each piece of fish on the plate so that each has a thin layer of oil on it to stop it from sticking to the grill.

Once the metal of the grill is hot (it should be a little shiny if it is a grill you've used a few times). You'll learn the look of your grill when it is ready the more you use it. Mine is about ten years old so it is a familiar sight to me.

If your grill turns white from the heat, wait ten minutes or so as it is too hot.

Place the fish on the grill "presentation" side down, skin side up. The skin side is easy to recognize as it has the blood line on it. Just look for the deep red lines on the flesh, that is the skin side.