What's your favorite way to eat a wahoo?

[ned]

It's wahoo season in Jamaica. I'm headed down there tomorrow to try and catch a few of them and have started to nut once again over the wahoo problem. In the past we've brined, we've escabeched, we've sashimied, we've grilled and pan-roasted all to varying degrees of success. I think brining and then grilling may have been the best so far. At the moment I''m thinking about wahoo ceviche maybe with some conch mixed in.

I'm curious if anyone has ideas and experience about how to get the most out of this challenging fish.

Thanks

[liamsaunt]

Yum, wahoo! This is my favorite fish. Of course, I can only get it when on vacation. My favorite thing to do with it is just to marinate for an hour or so in olive oil, then grill it and serve with a compound butter. I've poached it before too, but I like it best grilled.

I never thought to brine it before. I'll try that next trip.

[Megan Blocker]

My all-time favorite way to eat a Wahoo?

When I was fifteen, my grandparents took my entire extended family (all 8 cousins, one pair of parents and my single mom) to Turks and Caicos for a week-long vacation. We stayed on Provodenciales in a small hotel - no Club Med for these intrepid folks! We went parasailing one day, snorkeling out on the reefs another, and one day, we took two boats and went deep-sea fishing.

I don't remember which boat brought home the biggest haul (which probably means it wasn't my boat and I've suppressed the memory of losing ), but I do remember that we caught a huge amount of wahoo. We took it to the restaurant we'd eaten at for New Year's Eve (when we were seated next to Denzel Washington and his wife, who I'm sure were so thrilled to have a rowdy bunch of hooligans right there), and they cooked it up for us two ways - fried and grilled.

It was delicious. And, to this day, when Pops gets excited, he shouts "Wahooooo!"

So, no, I have no suggestions or recommendations (sorry!), but I do want to thank you for bringing back memories.

I wonder where my cocktail napkin with Denzel's signature went?

[DTBarton]

I love wahoo any way, the trick is to not overcook it, which is easy to do.

The thicker the piece, the lower the heat on the grill as wahoo is very susceptible to getting dry on the outside while still raw on the inside.

I like thinnish pieces marinated in olive oil, a little soy sauce, lime juice, salt and pepper and grilled until just done.

[fifi]

Back in the time that I ran with a rowdy bunch that harrassed pointy nosed fishes in various parts of the world, a wahoo catch was more prized than a big blue marlin. The best I ever had was cooked on a griddle at the hotel in Cabo San Lucas. We actually didn't catch them as it was on the "daily special" when we arrived. The chef turned out perfectly griddled wahoo steaks that had been slathered in ojo de aho. I had had dorado done that way in Cozumel several years before so perhaps that memory intruded. (Ojo de aho is finely diced garlic, very slowly simmered in oil and butter until the garlic is toasted, and the oil is used as the cooking oil.) The steaks were perfectly cooked on the inside and had a delightful brown crust on the outside. I suspect that the crust was achieved by salting the fish and letting stand for a while before plopping it on the griddle.

[jsolomon]

How do you people eat a town?

Edited February 15, 2006 by jsolomon (log)

[ned]

Replying from sunny Port Antonio Jamaica, I have some news about wahoo. News to me anyway. Treat it like tuna. Season, sear then unexpectedly, rest for a few minutes and serve. It's definitely best to pull off the filets rather than making steaks. Wahoo have sharp thin bones that are no fun to contend with. Cut steaks from the filets, thickish steaks. I seasoned with salt and allspice. Sear in high temp oil and then finish in the pan with some butter and a spring or two of thyme. Serve with a little grated ginger on top. The inside should be rare to raw. We did this a second time around with a file that had been in a brine made of equal parts salt and sugar, white rum, ginger, thyme, onion, and allspice. Results were different but not measurably better or worse. There's definitely something to cooking serving a fish that was trying to pull you out of a boat a few hours before.