Pescado a la Veracruzana

Whole red snapper baked under tomato, olives, capers, and pickled jalapeños in the Gulf port style

Origin: Veracruz, Mexico

From the journey of Caper.

Veracruz was for nearly three hundred years the only legal port of entry for Spanish shipping into New Spain, and the cooking that grew up around it is the most European in Mexico. It is built on the things that survived a long Atlantic crossing packed in salt, brine, or oil: olives, capers, almonds, bay, and dried spices. Pescado a la veracruzana is the emblem of that kitchen and is unusual in being a genuinely even collaboration rather than one cuisine laid over another. A whole fish, classically huachinango, red snapper, from the Gulf, is baked under a sauce of tomato, onion, garlic, olives, capers, bay, oregano, and pickled jalapeños with a little of their liquor. Count the origins: the fish and the tomato and the chilli are American, the olives and capers and bay and the technique are Spanish, and neither half would produce this dish alone. The capers are not decoration. Their salt and their sharp mustard-family bite are what keep a sauce of this sweetness from cloying, working with the olive brine and the jalapeño pickling liquor to give the dish its characteristic sour-salty edge. Mexican cooks call this whole register a la veracruzana and apply it to other things, but the fish is the original. There is a running argument in Veracruz about the jalapeños. Purists insist on chiles largos or güeros, pale and slender and only faintly hot, on the grounds that the dish should be aromatic rather than fiery; the pickled jalapeño is the modern city version. Both are defensible and both are cooked, and the chilli is meant to be a note in the sauce rather than the point of it. Mexico grows no capers and never has. Every caper in this dish has arrived by ship, as it has since the sixteenth century.

Ingredients

Fish

1.5 kg whole red snapper, scaled and gutted, or 4 thick fillets
3 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp sea salt
2 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste

Sauce

60 ml olive oil
1 whole large white onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
900 g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or 2 tins of good plum tomatoes
3 whole bay leaves
1 tsp dried Mexican oregano
1 whole cinnamon stick, 3 cm
120 g green manzanilla olives, whole or halved
4 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained
4 whole pickled jalapeños or chiles güeros, sliced, plus 2 tbsp of their liquor

To Finish

2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped

To Serve

1 whole lime, cut into wedges

Method

Slash the fish three times on each side through to the bone. Rub all over, inside the slashes and the cavity, with the lime juice, salt, and crushed garlic. Leave in the refrigerator for thirty minutes.
Heat the olive oil in a wide pan over a medium heat and cook the sliced onion gently for eight to ten minutes until soft and translucent but not coloured. Add the sliced garlic and cook one minute more.
Add the tomatoes, bay leaves, oregano, and cinnamon stick. Simmer uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes, breaking the tomatoes down with a spoon, until thick enough to hold a trail.
Stir in the olives, capers, sliced chillies, and their pickling liquor. Simmer for a further five minutes, then taste. It should be sharp, salty, and slightly sour; add salt only if it genuinely needs it.
Heat the oven to 180°C fan, 200°C conventional. Spoon a third of the sauce into a baking dish large enough to hold the fish, lay the fish on top, and spoon the rest over so it is well covered.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes for a whole fish of this size, until the flesh at the thickest point comes away cleanly from the backbone. Fillets will take 12 to 15 minutes.
Remove the bay leaves and the cinnamon stick, scatter with parsley, and bring the dish to the table whole with lime wedges and white rice.

Notes

Red snapper is traditional and any firm white fish that holds together will do: sea bass, bream, grouper, or thick cod loin. A whole fish gives a better result than fillets because the bones and skin enrich the sauce as it bakes. On the chilli: Veracruz purists use chiles largos or güeros, pale and mild, and argue that the pickled jalapeño makes the dish hotter than it should be. Use whichever you prefer, but keep the pickling liquor either way, since a good deal of the sauce's sourness comes from it. The sauce is excellent on its own and is made in quantity in Veracruz households, then used through the week over eggs, over chicken, or folded into rice. It keeps for four days refrigerated and freezes well. Serve with plain white rice and nothing more elaborate. Bread rolls, bolillos, are the local accompaniment for mopping the dish, and a cold beer is the standard drink.

The Gastrographer

Name: Pescado a la Veracruzana
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h 20 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Mexico
Ingredients: 1.5 kg whole red snapper, scaled and gutted, or 4 thick fillets; 3 tbsp lime juice; 1 tsp sea salt; 2 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste; 60 ml olive oil; 1 whole large white onion, thinly sliced; 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced; 900 g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or 2 tins of good plum tomatoes; 3 whole bay leaves; 1 tsp dried Mexican oregano; 1 whole cinnamon stick, 3 cm; 120 g green manzanilla olives, whole or halved; 4 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained; 4 whole pickled jalapeños or chiles güeros, sliced, plus 2 tbsp of their liquor; 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 1 whole lime, cut into wedges

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control