Cooking and grill fish is mostly easy, but fish can be a little tricky to cook correctly, especially without losing all the meat through the grills.
Fish to Grill
Fish meat tends to flake and come apart easily. The thinner the piece of meat, the worse this problem becomes. This makes some fish much harder to grill than others. Fish fillets are generally bad for grilling. Stick with cuts big enough to be called a steak or whole fish.
Fish that can be cut into thick steaks, such as tuna, salmon and swordfish, are better for grilling right on the rack. Slightly smaller fish, such as trout, are good for grilling whole. Thin fish, such as cod and orange roughy, should be grilled whole and frequently basted or grilled in a foil packet.
Preparing Fish for Grilling
Clean, gut and cut your fish as needed. Even if you have a fish steak ready to grill, make sure it's clean by rinsing it in cool water and patting it dry with a paper towel. Most recipes for grilling fish call for some sort of marinade. It doesn't take long to marinate fish, usually between 15 to 60 minutes. Poking the fish meat with a knife will help marinades seep in and take hold.
Grilling Fish
Most fish need to be grilled over medium or high heat. Fish cooks quickly, but also loses moisture quickly, so low heat will leave the outside burned with the inside still raw. The meat will look slightly glossy and opaque if still raw. Cooked fish flakes easily if poked with a fork.
Fish tends to keep cooking even after it's been removed from the grill, so be careful to cook it just until done. Remove the fish from the grill immediately, or you'll end up with a dry and tasteless meat. It won't take long to grill. A one-inch-thick filet will take about four minutes per side.
Fish Grilling Tools
Always use a spatula, or two, to help you flip fish right on the grill. This will help support the body and keep the meat from flaking and falling through the grill. The bigger the spatula, the easier it will be to scrape the fish from the grill and flip it.
A grill basket is a wire basket that you can throw food into. The small holes in the mesh help keep the food from falling into the fire. Fish baskets are created from two flat wire meshes, and you sandwich the fish between them.
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