BBQ Sole with Kunzea & Dill

Photo & story by Wai Lin Coultas

IN KEEPING with the Australian tradition of cranking up the barbie over a summery Christmas while shying away from shelling a heap of prawns, this easy to whip up refreshingly light recipe puts another Aussie seafood on the grill and goes Tassie local with what’s in season for fruit, veg and herbs. The perfect bon appétit for Yuletide entertaining.

Ingredients

6 x 200g fillets sole or flounder

90g fresh shitake mushrooms, stalks removed and caps sliced

1½ nectarines, thinly sliced into 42 segments

1/2 japanese cucumber, julienned

3/4 red capsicum, deseeded and julienned

2 sprigs fresh dill

30 fresh sage leaves

canola & olive oil

salt & cracked black pepper

For the sauce

5 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

1 large white onion, peeled and thinly sliced

40 g butter

2 tsp Wild Pepper Isle’s dried kunzea leaves, coarsely pounded

1 sprig fresh dill, leaves chopped

1 tsp allspice

100 ml white wine

100 ml thickened cream

1 tbsp white vinegar

1 tbsp Prickly Box honey

1. Pre-heat barbecue on roast setting and brush fish fillets both sides with olive oil; seasoning.

2. Barbecue fillets on medium heat 1 to 1.5 minutes each side till lightly charred and opaque white. Then slice each into 3 and set aside covered.

3. Shallow fry till crisp the sage leaves and then the mushrooms in pre-heated canola oil. Drain the sage and mushroom chips.

4. To make sauce, stir-fry garlic and onions in melted butter over medium heat till slightly caramelised before adding wine and kunzea, cooking out the alcohol.

5. Stir in allspice, vinegar and thickened cream, thickening sauce with stick blender.

6. Add honey, seasoning with salt and pepper, and stir in the chopped dill.

7. To plate 1 individual serve, center a spiral of alternating cucumber and capsicum strips before stacking 3 segments of sole over and lightly saucing; topping stack with 5 sage chips, a nectarine slice and a sprig tip of dill, and garnishing with 6 nectarine slices, 6 mushroom chips and fresh dill.

8. Serve with remaining sauce on the side.

Serves 6.

BBQ sole, an alternative to prawns for the festive season.