It’s been a while since I’ve cooked a white fish so I felt I was overdue to look into the list of countries I’d yet to cook from (and it’s kind of nuts that the number has dwindled now to less that 60!) to find one.

I’ve had Iraq’s Masgouf on my list for a while but was just looking for the right time to try something a little different on the grill (and to make sure my dedicated grillmaster was game). Masgouf is an Iraq grilled fish that uses a grill basket (which is more of a double sided grill paddle than a basket) to grill white fish. In Iraq, they tend to use carp but I elected for cord as that was the best, most economical white fish available to me that day. We have one of these “grill baskets” and the last time we used it we had a minor disaster with the meat patties that were sandwiched between the grill pads fell out when we didn’t have it super secure. So to say we may have been a bit gun shy was an understatement.

But first, let me talk about the seasoning and paste/sauce that is created. This leaned heavily on curry powder along with some simple vegetables like tomatoes and onion to bring flavor to a sauce that quickly (thanks to tomato paste) thickened up into a paste-like marinade for coating the fish. The seasonings were also very simple (thanks lemon juice and vinegar!) and this recipe did not require me to search out special ingredients. My regular pantry did the trick!

Now back to the “basket.” Even though the paste was relatively thick, I was still worried about ingredients slipping through so once we coated the fish in the paste and layered the onion and tomato on top, we then wrapped it in foil. This basically created a steam pocket and the end result was wonderfully steamed fish (though I was missing the char grilled marks) with little to no mess. This dish was so much more flavorful than I expected and the fish was perfectly cooked.

The recipe I used is from Hilda’s Kitchen Blog but unfortunately the link seems to keep giving me an error that I can’t remove. But credit is definitely due.

Overall Level of Effort: 2

Skill Level: Intermediate

Would Make it Again? Yes

Additional Notes: No real notes, though I did elect to use fillets that were de-boned as opposed to a whole fish. I really tried to simplify things a bit for my own insanity and I think it turned out just fine!

Masgouf / Iraqi Grilled Fish