Marking skin-on fish fillets and poultry breasts

If your fillet is lean, you can grease it lightly. Put a little oil and salt on a plate and pull the fillets through the oil. Rub off any excess oil with your hands.

First grill the flesh side to create a nice grill mark. Ideally, use an offset or fish spatula instead of your tongs. Then place the fillet skin-side down. If the skin sticks to the grid, you can slide the fillet off its skin with your spatula once it’s done. Now you still have a nice presentable side and you can pull the skin off the grid once it’s baked dry. The reason to grill the flesh side of fish and poultry first is that most of its fat resides under the skin. If you grill the skin first, the risk for undesired grease smolder is greater.