Easy, quick fresh fish with simple sauce on the BBQ griddle accessory
Fish fillets can easily and quickly be cooked on the BBQ by using the griddle accessory, which are available for most gas and charcoal barbecues. As mackerel fillets are quite delicate they are best cooked on the griddle; placing them directly onto the grate would result in them sinking through the rails and getting stuck. When you cook them on the griddle you also get nice crispy skin; which you wouldn’t get if you cooked them in tinfoil. Richard Holden the gourmet BBQ chef shows how easy it is in this BBQ.
We have used the griddle in the centre of the Gourmet Barbecue System grate on the gas barbecue and we are going to be cooking directly over the burner. Turn the burner to about half heat and the side burners on low, just to fill the cooking chamber with nice ambient heat. Heat up the griddle, it will be about 50C hotter than the lid thermometer registers. Place a little vegetable oil onto the griddle; don’t use olive oil or butter, it burns, we have used rapeseed oil.
Place the seasoned fillets onto the griddle, skin side down and press down so that all the skin touches the griddle. Close the lid and cook for only a couple of minutes; once almost all of it has gone opaque turn over with the spatula and cook for a further minute. It is cooked when it is opaque all the way through. Take off as soon as it hits this point as over-cooking will make it rubbery.
We have served ours simply with a dressing of soy sauce, lime juice and zest, chilli and a little ginger. Now all you need is a salad and some lovely fresh sourdough bread and farm butter.
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- juice of 1 lime
- zest of half lime
- half small medium hot chilli
When cooking fish on the BBQ there is absolutely no need to wrap it up in tinfoil; whole fish can be cooked in the fish basket, firm larger pieces can be cooked straight on the BBQ grill; see our BBQ video showing how to cook Salmon Fillets with Pesto on the Traeger Wood Pellet Grill. Small pieces of fish or seafood can be cooked in the vegetable grill baskets; see our video showing how to cook marinated king prawns. The more delicate pieces of fish such as plaice or sole are better cooked on a griddle plate, which are available for most makes of gas and charcoal barbecues. Check out our video showing how to cook whole Trout with Lemon and Tarragon in the Weber fish basket.
