In Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds, a short story by Agatha Christie, featuring her famed detective Hercule Poirot, the latter’s friend proclaims that he prefers “an honest fillet of sole and no messy sauce over it.” His theory is that serving fish with too much sauce conceals “the fact that the fish underneath is none of the best!” The opposite applies too: pouring a rich, thick sauce over delicious, delicate, high-quality meat ruins the latter by masking its flavours. But there is a third option too: a perfect marriage of meat and sauce that enhances your dining pleasure.
That’s just what Tannie Maria offered up in the fourth episode of Recipes for Love and Murder: grilled snoek with apricot basting. It’s a classic pairing, popularly made on the braai. However, my attempt went into the oven. I was astounded at how simple it was to put together – and the result was mouthwateringly delicious. It’s my favourite recipe of the season so far. You can get the recipe here and follow it up to just before the grilling step. I heated the oven to 200°C, popped it in for 30 minutes, et voila!
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The most surprising thing I learnt with this recipe – and it surprised everyone I told too – is that snoek is not an exclusively South African fish. I discovered this after checking out the label on my snoek and seeing that it was sourced from New Zealand. The fact that the word snoek is South African, has clearly led us to believe that it’s a South African fish, when it’s merely our unique name for it. Snoek is derived from the Dutch word zeesnoek. Zee means “sea” and snoek means “pike”. When Dutch colonists found snoek in South African oceans, it reminded them of a freshwater pike back home, hence the name.
This fish, a type of snake mackerel, is found throughout oceans in the Southern Hemisphere, specifically around Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Angola, Namibia, and Australasia. Its scientific name is Thyrsites atun. The Chileans and Argentinians call it sierra, while in Australasia it’s called barracouta. What has been argued is that only Thyrsites atun sourced from South Africa should be called snoek, whereas if it’s sourced from New Zealand (where a lot of big retailers source their “snoek” from), it should be called barracouta. While retailers are unlikely to take this step, what they can’t get away from is being transparent about the source on the label. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to read food labels. Yet, no matter where the fish comes from (although it’s preferable to buy local), once you pop it on the braai, you’ll grill all the Kiwi right out of that fish.
Views expressed are my own. All opinions are my own. The opinions expressed here belong solely to me.
Words and images: Claudia Hauter