The summer seems already going away, but since it was still sunny we decided to have another grill in the garden, and since the fisherman brought us a 4,5 kg pike we also knew what to grill 😀

You can eat it next to whatever you prefer, but for me grilled vegetables are perfect, and this time I also prepared a beurre blanc sauce using a mountain butter…so I added a French touch too 😀

It’s not too difficult, let’s see.

INGREDIENTS (4 people):

• 800 g of Pike fillets
• extra virgin olive oil
• the juice of one lemon
• 1 clove of garlic
• freshly ground black pepper
• fresh herbs (I used sage and rosemary)
• salt

For the Beurre Blanc sauce:

• 150 g of good butter, very cold (in this case I used a mountain butter)
• 2 shallots
• 5 cl white wine vinegar or lemon juice
• 5 cl white wine
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt
• (if you would like you could add also a little bit of cream or crème fraîche)

1. First of all make fillets from the pike. Then place it in a deep dish or an oven pan with abundant extra virgin olive oil, the juice of one lemon, the herbs, the sliced clove of garlic and the salt, and spread this marinade all over the fillets. I left the fish in this marinade for more than one hour, and I turned it some times.
2. While the fish is resting you can prepare the fire 🙂 we will cook the fish over the embers.
3. I also prepared the Beurre Blanc during this time. Cut the shallots very thin, also using a robot is fine. Then take a pan, add the shallots, the vinegar (or the lemon juice) and the wine and start cooking at medium heat. Cook until the liquids are gone, so take care and keep moving the shallots, they must not burn. Once it’s dry add 2-3 tablespoons of cold water and then start adding gradually the butter which you have cut in pieces. Add piece by piece and keep mixing with a hand whisker (the butter must be very cold). The butter has to reach the boiling point. You must keep this boiling point and keep mixing until the sauce is ready, until it’s perfectly smooth. If you would like you could add also a little bit of cream or crème fraîche, in that case it will be more smooth. Then you can decide if to filter the shallots and keeping just the sauce or if you have no problems with it you can leave the shallots too, I left them. Add salt and pepper at your taste.
4. This sauce should be served immediately, or you can keep it warm placing it over a bain-marie.
5. Now the pike: drain the exceeding marinade with absorbing paper, remove herbs and garlic from the fish and then place it on the grill over the embers starting to cook it from the skin side. In my case it was the fillet of a big pike as I previously said, so it was thick (about two fingers), the time to cook depends on that, the thinner it is the faster it is. I left it 12-13 minutes on the skin and then I turned it and cooked it for other 7-8 minutes. While cooking I was adding the marinade over the fish using a rosemary sprig as a brush, and the falling oil added extra flavor. I added pepper just in the end.
6. Vegetables: you can grill them before the fish, and then put them in some extra virgin olive oil with garlic and chili too. I used eggplants, zucchini, bell peppers and small onions.
7. When it’s ready serve the fish and add the beurre blanc over it (unfortunately over the bain-marie it was changing a bit the texture, as I said it’s better to have it ready in the moment you need it, but the taste was very good).
8. Enjoy, I would say with a good white wine but in this case I chose a great beer: Rodenbach Vintage, an amazing sour Belgian beer whose sourness fitted perfectly with the beurre blanc sauce 🙂

PS: take care of the bones, pike has some 🙂