Whole Butterflied Mackerel from Fish For Dinner

By Nathan Outlaw

When you are confident about cooking fish over coals, give this a go! Cooking a butterflied fish is something else and mackerel, with its beautifully marked skin, is visually a great-looking thing. The trio of asparagus, lemon and horseradish is such a good combination of flavours and all are complemented by grilled, slightly oily mackerel.

Serves 4

• 4 mackerel, about 400g (14oz) each,
• butterflied, descaled and pin-boned
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped thyme
• Olive oil, for marinating and cooking
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Classic potato salad, to serve

For the horseradish and lemon butter

• 250g (9oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 80g (2.oz) fresh grated horseradish or
• 2 tablespoons creamed horseradish
• 3 tablespoons each of chopped mint,
• tarragon, fennel herb
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon

To garnish

• 20 asparagus spears, woody end removed
• 2 lemons, halved
• Alternative fish: bream, bass, red mullet or grey mullet, sea bream, sea bass, goatfish

Method:

To marinate the fish, lay the butterflied fillets on a tray and sprinkle over the garlic and thyme. Season with pepper and drizzle with oil and carefully rub the flavourings into the fish. Cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for 2 hours. Light your barbecue (grill) around 30 minutes before you plan to start cooking. To make the flavoured butter, place the butter, shallot, garlic, horseradish, mint, tarragon, fennel, lemon zest and juice and some seasoning into a bowl and mix thoroughly until evenly blended. Transfer this butter to a pan and heat slowly on the side of the barbecue. When the barbecue coals are ready, cook the asparagus from raw over a medium heat (rather than the hottest part of the barbecue) until tender; this should take about 10 minutes. Once the asparagus is cooked, take it off the barbecue and keep warm. Now lay the butterflied fish skin-side down on the hottest part of the barbecue and cook for about 5 minutes.

Turn and cook for 3 minutes on the flesh side to finish. (The skin should have lifted, making it easy to turn the fish over.) Arrange the fish and asparagus on warm plates and divide the butter between them. I serve this dish with a classic potato salad, pumped up with extra horseradish.

This is the Whole Butterflied Mackerel Grilled Asparagus & Horseradish & Lemon Butter, extracted from Fish For Dinner, by Nathan Outlaw.

If you enjoyed this recipe, why not check out Tarragon-Mustard Prawn Skewers from Weber’s BBQ Bible