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LEMON ALPINE CHAR 

An unusual fresh antipasto 

CHAR IN A LIGHT LEMON MARINADE

Recipe:

A particular and different recipe based on a typical ingredient of our area, the arctic char or salmerin in dialect which is present in several lakes of the Val di Sole including Lake Barco, Lake Denza, Lake Ortisè, Lake Alto, Lake Rotondo, Quarto Lake, Soprasasso Lake, Saleci Lake, Malghetto di Mezzana Lakes, Malghette Lake.

Crostone al salmerino | © Archivio APT Val di Sole - Ph Davide Zambelli

Ingredients:

650 g char fillets
650 g salt
650 g sugar
zest of 2 untreated Garda lemons

Instructions:

In a bowl, mix the salt and the sugar with the lemon zest. Make sure you recuperate all the lemon’s essential oils, rubbing the grater with the salt and sugar. Take the side fin off the fillets and remove any remaining bones.
Cover the bottom of a bowl or oven dish with a little marinade, lay a fillet on top, add more marinade and continue alternating fish and marinade until you have used up all the ingredients. Marinate the fish in the fridge for about three and a half hours. When the flesh is dry on the surface but still soft and moist when poked, it is ready. Rinse off the marinade under running water to remove all the aromatic salt and sugar. Dry the fillets well and slice paper-thin with a knife to make carpaccio.

TIPS: For a rather original idea, serve the fish carpaccio on large bread crostini, slightly toasted in a pan, and topped with parsley mayonnaise and a few tomato quarters. For the mayonnaise, simply blanch some parsley leaves in water for 3 minutes to wilt them, then blitz thoroughly with a stick blender, adding a little water to make a cream you can then sieve. If liked, you can add a few spinach leaves to the parsley to make sure the mayonnaise is nice and thick. Once you have a thick, smooth cream, put it aside.

Break an egg into the blender beaker (a stick blender is fine), add a generous dessertspoon of lemon juice, salt and pepper. Start to blend and gradually drizzle in about 250 ml of corn seed oil and 50 ml of extra virgin olive oil from Garda, which will give your mayonnaise body and a refined note. Also add a heaped dessertspoon of creamed parsley (with the spinach if you used it) and blitz until the sauce is nice and green. Spread this on the crostini, then arrange the fish carpaccio on top, add a few tomato quarters and blanched lemon zest.