Recipe - Huachanango Veracruzana (Red Snapper Veracruz)

3 pound Red snapper, whole
1 teaspoon Salt, or to taste
2 tablespoon Lime juice
2 pound Fresh thyme leaves, skinned,
seeded, and roughly chopped
One fourth cup Olive oil
1 md Onion (about 6 oz), finely
cut or sliced up
2 Cloves garlic, peeled and
cut or sliced up
1 lg Bay leaf
One fourth teaspoon Oregano
12 Green olives, pitted, cut
into halves
3 tablespoon Large capers
2 Chiles jalepenos en
escabeche, cut into strips
One half teaspoon Salt, or to taste
3 tablespoon Olive oil

This is a very colorful dish from Veracruz a large red snapper covered
with a wellflavored tomato sauce. As I am always saying of Mexican dishes,
there are many versions of this recipe. I have chosen what I think to be
the best example and the most delicious of all those that I have tried. The
more commercial way of serving huachanango a la Veracruzana is to fry the
filleted fish and serve it covered with the sauce, which has been cooked
separately. In Veracruz some of my friends serve it as a casserole, with
layers of the filleted fish and the sauce cooked together.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Have the fish cleaned, leaving the head
and tail on. Prick the fish on both sides with a coarsetined fork, rub in
the salt and lime juice, and set it aside in an oven proof serving dish to
season for about 2 hours. In a large skillet, heat One fourth cup oil and fry the
onion and garlic, without browning, until they are soft. Add the tomatoes,
with the rest of the ingredients to the pan and cook the sauce over a brisk
flame until it is well seasoned and some of the juice has evaporated ,
about 10 minutes, Pour the sauce over the fish. Sprinkle the remaining oil
over the sauce and bake the fish for about 20 minutes, uncovered, on one
side. Turn the fish over and continue baking it until it is just
tender.about 30 minutes. Baste the fish frequently with the sauce during
the cooking time.

The sauce should be flavored by the chilies, but should not be too picante.
If you are serving this dish as a main course, then Arroz Blanco (white
rice) is a very good accompaniment. If it is to be served alone before the
main course, then simply accompany it with hot tortillas. If you have any
left over, it is even good cold; the sauce. becomes gelatinous with the
juices from the bones and head. The recipe as given is intended as a first
course for 6 people. If you serve it as a main course, then it would be
better to have a 4 to 4One half pound fish and increase the sauce.

Recipe by: Diana Kennedy's Cuisines of Mexico, p. 223 Posted to TNT
Prodigy's Recipe Exchange Newsletter by Lou Parris
lbparris@earthlink.net on Mar 25, 1997