BBQ'd Grouper (Gadao) and Eggplant

My wife, Lupe, wanted me to BBQ some Gadao, which is the Chamorro term for grouper. Lupe loves BBQ'd grouper. I decided to make full use of the fire so I added BBQ'd eggplant, and hot plate grilled onions and cowboy fries (potato wedges) just to round out the meal.

Enough said!! Here are the pics....

Got these pan sized grouper all laid out. I just seasoned with sea salt and a little garlic powder.

Closeup of the grouper. These are just about done. BBQ'd grouper taste fantastic. Especially with the flavor that the smoke imparts on them.

I placed the eggplants directly on the coals to BBQ them. Notice I try to keep the stems from burning by protecting them with wood or raising up off the coals. Need the stems for "handles" later on.

Here is the finished eggplant. To prepare this dish you can view the process on one of my previous posts here.

Built up the fire, placed the hot plate and caramelized the onions in butter. Seasoned with a little fresh ground black pepper.

Cut the potato into eight pieces, seasoned with sea salt and black pepper and grilled on the hot plate with the remaining butter.

Here is the finished eggplant dish in the coconut milk finadenne' (Chamorro hot dipping sauce). You can see how we utilized the natural "handles" of the eggplants.

BBQ'd grouper served and already being attacked!! Lupe is one fast gal when it comes to her BBQ'd fish. Watch your hands around her!!! 

Lupe's plate. You can see her lifting up a hot pepper. Just about every bite will include a hot pepper. Lupe can take plenty of heat. I gave her a Ghost pepper and she took it down like a popsicle. But she did say it was hot!!!

My eggplant with that coconut milk/lemon finadenne'. You can see all the hot peppers. They are a must eat with this dish.

To top off our meal, we also had the staple of Guam, white rice.

Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner. Finished up by 5:30 pm and went out to the garden to work it off.

Another great day on Guam!!

Until next time....

Guam Grouper BBQ

Living on a tropical island you just have to love seafood. One of my favorites is Grouper. Here is some information about groupers so you know what I am talking about: Grouper Info.

As some of you may already know, I love to fish. On a recent bottom fishing trip we caught some poundage and I just had to BBQ one of my favorites....the Red Grouper pictured above. Other names for this particular grouper is Gadao, Lapulapu, Lyretail Grouper, just to name a few. But one thing is for certain, they are delicious BBQ'd.

The prep is fairly basic. Here is what I do:

I scaled and gutted the fish and cleaned the body cavity out real good with a strong water nozzle. Does the trick everytime.

Then I made 3 diagonal slices on each side of the body to allow for the seasoning to penetrate better.

I oiled the fish down with olive oil so it doesn't stick on the grill. The oil also gives the fish a little extra crispiness once it is BBQ'd.

Then I season the fish inside and out with sea salt, rubbing the salt into the flesh.

And the next step is to grill, or as we say on Guam, BBQ the fish.

It takes maybe about 10 minutes per side over my wood flame fire. I have my grill up about 1 foot over the coals. 

After having BBQ'd both sides, I sit him up and Que the inside just a bit. I don't want to dry the flesh out.

The "cheek" muscle is the tastiest part of this fish. We call it the filet mignon of the fish.

Here is the business end of the grouper. Don't put your hand in there. It may tickle just a little..

So no more than 30 minutes later, it's chow time!!!!

What I did not mention was that this was a special request by my wife, Lupe. I included some pics of her at the dinner table.

Lupe wasted no time with her feast. By the time I got settled down with my camera, she had finished almost half of the fish.

Lupe's meal would not be complete without her finadenne' (Guam hot sauce).

This is where Lupe "totches" or dips her every morsel in for some extra "pika" before it goes "down the hatch"!!!

Now doesn't Lupe look like a happy camper?? She is concentrating so hard she doesn't even know I'm there or so it seems. And she knows that whole fish is hers. Even has her little basket of fresh calamansi lemon right in front of her for that extra tang. Lupe knows how to eat her fish.

Well, folks...that is how it's done here. And this is happening all over the island everyday. It's like we can BBQ everyday, but we get serious on the weekends here on Guam.


So if you like to BBQ or eat out and have a great food fest and maybe even enjoy a few "cocktails", Guam is the place. You will never forget a trip to Guam. I guarantee it!!!

Until next time....