Barramundi has some of the best skin of any fish you can buy in Australia. It is thick, faintly gelatinous before it hits heat, and when it is cooked properly it goes genuinely crisp — closer to crackling than to the papery skin you get off a delicate fish.
It is also a fillet with a difficult shape, and that is where most barramundi goes wrong.
The shape problem
A barramundi fillet is deep and rounded at the shoulder and tapers away to a thin tail. Put the whole thing in a pan and the tail is overcooked several minutes before the shoulder is ready.
Two ways to deal with it:
- Portion by thickness, not by weight. Cut the thick shoulder into one piece and the thinner section into another, and cook them as two batches.
- Angle your cuts. Cutting portions on a slant rather than straight down evens out the thickness of each piece.
The rounded shoulder also means the fillet doesn’t naturally sit flat, so a good part of the skin never touches the pan at all unless something holds it there.
Why the skin is worth the effort
Barramundi skin is thick with a decent fat layer under it. Given real contact and enough time, that fat renders and the skin crisps hard. Given poor contact, the same thickness works against you: it goes leathery rather than crisp, which is why people who have had bad barramundi skin often decide they don’t like it.
The difference is almost entirely contact. This is a fillet where an even weight on top earns its keep more obviously than on almost any other fish — the curved shoulder simply will not lie flat on its own.
Before it goes near the pan
- Dry the skin thoroughly. Wire rack over a tray, uncovered in the fridge, two hours minimum. Thick skin holds surface moisture stubbornly, so give it longer if you can.
- Scale check. Run the back of a knife against the grain of the skin. Barramundi scales are large and one missed patch will ruin an otherwise perfect fillet.
- Score only if the skin is very thick — two or three shallow cuts through the skin alone, not into the flesh. Most fillets don’t need it.
- Salt the skin as it goes on the rack.
The method
- Heat a heavy pan over medium to medium-high. Barramundi skin needs real heat to render, but not enough to scorch before it does.
- Thin film of neutral oil.
- Lay the fillet in skin-side down, away from you.
- Weight on straight away. On this fish the weight isn’t just anti-curl insurance — it is what makes the shoulder touch the pan at all. Without it, you get a crisp ring around the edge and a soft patch in the middle.
- Leave it alone for two to three minutes, then lift the weight off once the fillet has settled flat.
- Keep cooking skin-side down. Watch opacity climb the side of the fillet. A thick shoulder portion may want eight minutes or more.
- Turn briefly — twenty or thirty seconds — or finish it off the heat entirely.
- Rest skin-side up. Salt the skin again as it comes out.
Wild vs farmed
Most barramundi sold in Australia is farmed, and farmed fish is fattier, more consistent in size, and a little more forgiving in the pan. Wild barramundi is leaner and firmer and cooks faster.
Freshwater-farmed barramundi occasionally carries an earthy note. If that bothers you, the skin side is where it concentrates — a hard, properly crisp skin and a squeeze of lemon deals with it entirely.
What to serve with it
Barramundi is firm and mild, so it takes assertive company without disappearing: burnt butter and lemon, a sharp green sauce, fennel, or a tomato and olive dressing spooned around rather than over — keep liquid off the skin you just spent ten minutes crisping.
Common questions
Do you cook barramundi skin side down first?
Yes, and for most of the cook. Turn it for seconds at the end, if at all.
Should you score barramundi skin?
Only if it is unusually thick, and then only through the skin. Good contact does more than scoring.
Why is my barramundi skin chewy rather than crisp?
Almost always the skin was damp, or part of it never touched the pan. Thick skin punishes poor contact more than thin skin does.
Can you eat barramundi skin?
Yes — crisped properly it is one of the best skins going.
Barramundi or Asian sea bass?
Same fish. Lates calcarifer is sold as barramundi in Australia and as Asian sea bass in much of the world.
The tools in this article
Josh Niland’s Fish Weight — 1.6 kg, 16 cm across — and the Fish Pan, whose shallow sides let steam escape instead of pooling around the fillet.