Mediterranean BBQ Fish with Pancetta

My friend Mr Paul Coates was having a BBQ for his birthday. Mediterranean style please was the ask. Now that is a bloody big sea, what is Mediterranean style? Could be French, Greek, Italian, heck it could be Egyptian. So what to do? Well I muddled it up a bit and went with a hybrid, this is my Mediterranean BBQ Fish with Pancetta. So Olives from Greece, Pancetta from Italy, Tarragon from France, Fish from the sea, Lemons from Spain, and Beans from Portugal. How about that?

And here is what Mediterranean BBQ Fish with Pancetta looks like – DAMN that looks fine!!!

This comes in two parts. One of the parts you don’t actually need if you just want the fish and pancetta skewers for example. The veggies I did because I needed country coverage so that the dish became Mediterranean BBQ Fish with Pancetta. You could easily leave these out. But together it rocked, and as you can see from above it looked damn good too. Perfect bed mates!!!

Part 1 – the veggie bed;

• 8 red potatoes, skin on, quarter them and boil until soft in salty water. Drain and set aside;
• 1 packet of green beans, top and tail, halve and boil for 5 minutes in salty water. Drain and set aside;
• 1 jar of pitted black olives;
• 1/2 jar of stoned red olives;
• 2 lemons cut in to quarters;
• The juice of 1 lemon;
• 1 packet of Tarragon;
• Olive oil; and
• Sea salt and cracked black pepper.

So easy this. Once you have your boiled potatoes and beans, throw them on baking tray. Add the olives all over, throw on the lemon quarters, lay the tarragon spears all over the top. Drizzle with the lemon juice and Olive oil, and sprinkle with the salt & pepper. You have finished Phase 1 of Mediterranean BBQ Fish with Pancetta.

Phase 2 – the BBQ fish;

• 4 firm white fish fillets (snapper or cod – something like that). Cut in to cubes;
• 2-3 packs of Pancetta;
• 1 packet of Tarragon;
• Juice of 1 lemon;
• Olive oil;
• Sea salt & cracked black pepper.

Take a cube of fish, and place 2-3 leaves of Tarragon on it. Then wrap the fish cube and herb with Pancetta. Skewer that on a bamboo skewer, as this will hold the Pancetta on the fish, stop the fish breaking apart and also make it easy to cook. Place about three fish cubes per skewer. Lay these down in a tray and on both sides, drizzle with Olive oil and lemon juice, and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Set these aside.

When those BBQ coals are nice and white get cooking. Sling the baking tray on the grill, as you want to rewarm the vegetables and get all the juices bubbling and soaking in to the potatoes and beans. Occasionally give it a move about so not sticking and burning, and squeeze some of the lemon quarters over too. In parallel to that get the skewers on. These will cook in about 4-5 minutes per side. You can look at the fillet to make sure there is no transparency to the flesh to make sure. Also the Pancetta should start to charr and crisp – you can see that from the photo. When this is done, push each fish cube off the skewers on top of the vegetables and serve her up.

So my friends there you have it, my Mediterranean BBQ Fish with Pancetta. Of course yours truly did not go anywhere near this dish re tasting, but it flew off the plate, it truly did. I even had one lady ask me what it was because it looked so good. I told her. She then says; “I’m actually a vegetarian, but I can’t not try it!!!” And she did, and she came and commented on how good it was. Wow I ‘cured’ a vegetarian ha ha. Go on folks have a go. It’s a cracker. ENJOY!!!