I love the colour of this fish, arctic char, aka nieriä, both before and after cooking. It also really has a rather sweet taste, and it is such a delicious fish that no matter how you cook it, it will be extremely tasty.

This time I decided to try some pan-frying for fish, though I also used oven as well, you will read it below. As a side dish, you can serve some steamed vegetables, for instance I served steamed asparagus and onion. It is quite a filling fish so the best side dish is, I think, is some steamed vegetables and that’s all..

Ingredients:

2 fillets of arctic char, nieriä
1 package of cherry tomatoes
6 garlic cloves
A drop of olive oil
Fresh basil leaves, as many as you like
Salt, pepper
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1. Heat the oven to 200C.

2. Cover the fish fillets with salt and pepper.

3. Put a drop of olive oil on a frying pan. Spread it on the surface of the pan with a paper towel to remove any excess oil. Put the pan in high heat. When it is hot enough, put the fillets on the pan, flesh side down. Fry them like that for about 3 minutes.

4. Put a baking sheet on the oven tray. Take the fillets out of the frying pan and put them on the tray, this time flesh side up. Put it inside the oven and cook it for about 5 more minutes or until it is baked up to your desired degree.

5. Peel the garlic cloves and chop each clove into 2 pieces. Chop cherry tomatoes in 2 or 4 pieces, my cherries were quite big so I chopped into 4 pieces. Chop also basil leaves into pieces as small as you desire but I recommend not to make them too small. Put a drop of olive oil in a frying pan and again spread it all over the surface of the pan with a paper towel, removing the excess oil, as you did in step 3. Put the pan in medium heat. First stir fry the garlics, then add tomatoes, stir a bit more, then finally add basil leaves, as well as a little bit of salt and pepper. Do not fry them much!

6. Take the fish out of the oven. Put tomato-garlic-basil mixture on the baked fish while serving.

Oh boy, that was filling! And by a great luck, we were just taking our first bite from the fish as Gollum, at the beginning of “The Return of The King”, was taking his bite from one fish! Gollum-gollum!