• Lionfish Taco
  Use soft flour or crunchy corn tortillas. Spice Lionfish Filets with blackened seasoning and sear on a hot pan with olive oil. Place Lionfish in tortilla. Add shredded lettuce, home made spicy pico de gallo, warmed black beans, shredded cheese, top with sour cream

Most Divers are well aware of the severe threat Florida, the Bahamas, and virtually all of the Caribbean now faces with exploding Lionfish populations. They are voracious feeders, and are literally destroying the balance of life on more and more reefs every day. As they continue to multiply exponentially, the issue brings the human equation back in to this....Where the indigenous marine life is not equipped so far to handle the Lionfish invasion, humans are.

We need to promote the "Harvest" of Lionfish. Dive Charter Boats and Restaurants will need to be teeming up, in an effort to create an important event....We need to begin eating Lionfish to save our reefs....it would appear to be something most of us could just get our "teeth into", particularly when you discover how great these fish can taste, when prepared properly. When our "eating" of Lionfish becomes financially significant as a high end SEA FOOD, the Lionfish population will have met it's match.

What follows is a compiled list of recipes for preparing Lionfish. Every diver needs to speak to the restaurant of their choice about serving some of these delicacies. Whether you just want to eat them to do your part, or you are willing to go out on a boat and pole spear as many as you can find, we NEED YOU to be involved.
After shooting, handling has it's own issues, and future articles will cover the shearing off of the spines, and how easily we can

render the fish optimal for handling in the kitchen.

• Fluffy Battered Lionfish
  Take pancake mix, lemon pepper, milk and egg mix together / dip the lionfish with slits cut on the side in the batter then deep fry / make a dipping sauce out of mayonnaise hot sauce, salt, pepper, and finely chopped fresh cilantro / Serve with homemade deep fried shoestring potatoes cole slaw and a slice of lime.
• Bahamian Fish Fry Lionfish
  Grind a hot pepper in salt / cut slits in the side of the lionfish (head on) and rub the spicy salt all over the body of the fish / hard pan fry with peanut oil 1/4" deep. Serve with peas and rice, home made macaroni and cheese, and cole slaw with hot sauce.
• South Pacific Grilled Lionfish
  Briefly marinate lionfish filets in calamnsi juice (or lime) and salt. Flash grill in hot pan with olive oil or serve as ceviche. Make a dip by crushing 3 mild chillies in soy sauce and calamansi juice (or lime). Serve with sticky rice, grilled vegetables and mango chutney on the side. Eat with chop sticks.
• Lionfish Sushi
  Place sticky rice on seaweed wrap. Place raw lionfish filet, thin long sliced carrots, cucumber, raw turnip and fresh basil leaf. Roll tight and serve with soy sauce and wasabi