Can Diego-style red mullet

According to journalist and food writer Ramon Cavaller, rock red mullet grilled over holm-oak wood —never pine—, cleaned with seawater and cooked whole without scaling or gutting, a traditional method known as a la bruta, is one of the most flavourful dishes in Menorcan cuisine.

Ingredients

• Very fresh rock red mullet

• Holm-oak wood

• Garlic

• Parsley

• Virgin olive oil

• Seawater for cleaning the fish

Method

Light a fire using holm-oak wood and allow it to burn down until you have a good bed of hot embers.

Clean the red mullet with seawater, but do not scale or gut them. Leave them whole, in keeping with the traditional a la bruta method.

Place the fish on a grill over the embers and cook for three to four minutes on each side, until properly done.

Once cooked, remove the fish from the grill and carefully take out the livers. Place them in a mortar and crush them with garlic, parsley and a generous drizzle of virgin olive oil until you obtain a sauce.

Peel the red mullet, as the heat of the embers will have loosened the scales and made them easy to remove.

Finally, spoon the liver, garlic, parsley and olive-oil sauce over the fish and serve immediately.

Tradition

This dish, or a very similar version of it, was popularised in Baixamar by the well-known and fondly remembered restaurateur Diego Caules, of Can Diego.

It should always be prepared with very fresh rock red mullet, never frozen. Fish caught over rocky seabeds are particularly prized because they are more flavourful than those caught over muddy bottoms.