| La Talla (Ty-ya) - Cooking the Costa Grande Way |
by Ed Kunze
The Costa Grande is defined as the 160 mile stretch of coast between Acapulco and the river Rio Balsas near Lazaro Cardenas.
Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo is located on the upper 1/3 of the Costa Grade, and about 42 sea miles from Lazaro Cardenas. Unique to the Costa Grande are several various cuisine and a few distinctive methods of cooking. Most items have been the custom here for generations. For instance Pozole, a fantastic soup of pork, chicken and hominy corn, still has its traditional Thursday Pozole feast. Another interesting culinary creation of the Costa Grande is an unusual method of cooking fish.
We call it La Talla. No matter where you are in the world, La Talla has to be the absolute best way to cook a fish. There is a universal agreement among all of the best chefs: “do not over-cook fish”. There are few cooking methods available which can cook a whole fish, while maintaining a uniform wood smoke flavor and an evenly balanced temperature throughout. Any fish, because of its different thickness along the length of the body, has different cooking times for each portion or section. Because of this, to keep the thinner sections from being over-cooked or not ending up with raw meat in the thicker sections, the usual method is to fillet the fish or steak it out into uniform sections.
The secret to La Talla is the way we butterfly the entire fish out. Plus, some of the absolute best portions of flesh are in the head cavities. With this method, you can keep the head on to enjoy these morsels, or cut it off if you are limited in your cooking area size. After you cut off the tail section, split the head right down the middle. Then make an incision along one side of the backbone. By not cutting through the belly, you then make an incision from the underside of the backbone, but stop short of piercing the skin on the back of the fish. The entire fish will then lay out in three separate sections, with all three still joined together. The two large sections have all the meat, and the backbone lays off to the side. Everything is in a uniform thickness, or as well as can be.
Depending on whether you are to cook a 30 pound roosterfish, or a 2 pound red snapper, the size of the fish dictates the size of the rack you cook with. A small fish will fit on an easily obtained commercial rack. Whereas, for a 30 pounder, we use a frame made of 3/8” rebar and about 4 feet square, requiring two men to turn the cooking fish over.
The photo shown is of a dorado that has just been cooked, but the head and tail sections had all been removed before cooking. The wire handled rack was commercially bought and is about 18” square. The actual weight of the cooked fish was about 5 pounds.
To keep the butterfly sections of the fish immobile, the top rack is wired to the bottom rack on the other side. For a smaller fish, most any home bar-b-que will work, but you will need an open pit fire for a large fish.
Once the coals are just right, the racked fish is set above them, support by another rack below or with bricks (as shown). The first portion to be cooked is with the skin side down. While the skin side is cooking, baste the meat side with a strong Italian salad dressing, even adding a little Balsamic vinegar if you desire. After the skin side has cooked a few minutes, turn it over and finish it out. When you take the cooked fish off the coals, most people on the Costa Grande like to baste it again and also lightly coat it with mayo and diced tomatoes. Serve with tortillas and enjoy.
You do not need to live or vacation here to enjoy this innovative method of cooking of the Costa Grande. It should work perfectly well for salmon, bass, and several other species of fish. Try it, or even use your own favorite basting recipe. I think you will agree it is the absolute best way to cook fish.
January 2004
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