White Fish Fillet with Beet Puree

Today, I want to share with you one of my favorite methods of how you can cook a fillet of a white fish. For the side dish, we will prepare a beet puree with celery. This puree has a wonderful taste that will complete the taste of the fish and will keep the fish as the king of the plate. If you don’t like the taste of beets or celery, you can serve the white fish fillet near a green salad. If you want to replace it with your variant, pay attention to choosing something neutral that will not cover the taste of the fish.

As for the fish fillet, you can use whatever type of fish that you love to eat. This crust will fit perfectly the majority of types of fish. In case if you want to cook a fish without crust, I have also on my blog a recipe for how to cook a Dorade Fish Baked in the Oven.

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

What ingredients do you need to cook a White Fish Fillet with Beet Puree?

• 2 Medium Fillets of Hake

Fish Marinade:

• 6 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon of lemon peel
• 6 teaspoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Chilly flakes to taste
• 1 teaspoon of Aromatic herbs (dried tarragon)
• Salt to taste
• ½ ts of Pepper

Beet & Celery Puree

• 0.66 lbs (300 g.) of Celery
• ½ of a medium beet
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• ½ cups (120 ml.) of Hot Milk
• 1 tablespoon of butter

Fish Crust

• 3-4 slices of bread
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• 2-3 Garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 tablespoon of Parsley
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoon of Parmesan Cheese

How to cook White Fish Fillet with Beet Puree?

Fish Marinade

In a bowl, put the lemon peel, lemon juice, olive oil, chilly flakes, herbs that you like (In our case, we used dried tarragon), salt, and pepper to taste.

Mix well all the ingredients and move our fish into this plate.

Cover the fish well with our marinade and leave it alone until we prepare the rest of the ingredients.

In the meantime,  move on to the preparation of the puree.

Beet and Celery Puree

Cut the celery and beets into cubes of about 1 inch. Put the celery and beets in a bowl.

Season them with salt and pepper to taste.

Add olive oil and mix well all the ingredients.

After that, put them in the baking bag.

Tie the bag well and place it in the pre-heated oven at about 190°C (375°F) until the vegetables are cooked. (The cooking time depends on how young the vegetables are, but on average it takes about 45 minutes).

Quick note: To make sure the vegetables are cooked, test them by stabbing them with a toothpick. If the toothpick penetrates easily, then they are done.

The crust for the Fish

For the fish crust, prepare 3-4 slices of bread. Season them with salt, pepper, garlic, and olive oil.

Put them in the oven next to vegetables for about 10 minutes. (Be careful not to burn them).

After the crumbs are dry, crumble them small.

Add the minced parsley.

And the parmesan cheese.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and sprinkle with a little olive oil.

Mix all the ingredients well. With this crust, we will cover the fish later.

Preparing vegetables under the fish

We will use a few onions and carrots that we will put under the fish to give to the meat a more interesting taste. For that, slice the carrots into long and thin strips.

After that, cut the onion into thin slices.

After that, slice 2-3 cloves of garlic and put all the vegetables in the bowl in which you will bake the fish.

Sprinkle these vegetables with a little olive oil, season them with salt and pepper to taste, mix, and spread all over the surface of the dish until you will form a vegetable bed on which we will place the fish.

Gather everything together

Now put the fish over the vegetables that we prepared in the last step.

Over the fish, pour all the marinade left in the bowl.

After that, cover the fish with a crust that we prepared earlier.

When the vegetables for the puree are done, take them off the oven, and put them in their place – the fish, at the same temperature (190°C / 375°F) for 15-20 minutes.

Returning to our Beet and Celery Puree

Now is the time to mix the vegetable puree. To do this, first of all, we will need to heat the milk to the temperature of the vegetables.

After that, Put the vegetables in a bowl and mix them a little bit.

To this mix, add butter and some milk.

Mix them again. Gradually add milk and mix well until you get the density of puree that you want.

After that, season our puree with salt and pepper to taste.

We are done with the hardest part.

All we have to do now is wait until the fish is ready and we will start to arrange all the ingredients in the dish.

After the fish are cooked, take the fish fillet with the vegetables that were under the fillet, and carefully place it on the plate.

Near the fish, serve our puree, or as I said earlier, if you don’t like the taste of the beet or celery, serve it near a green salad or near some crispy parmentier potatoes.

Enjoy your meal!

You may be asking…

Why do you need to eat white fish?

We all know how useful for our bodies is fish meat. The advantage of white fish is that it doesn’t contain almost any fats. It is an important source of proteins for our body, and at the same time, it contains a few calories in comparison with other types of fishes. This may be an important factor for people who want to lose some weight. Besides that, the white fish is very rich in all types of Vitamins B that will boost your energy, brain function, and cell metabolism.

How can you cook the white fish fillet?

The white fish is a universal fish that you can cook in many ways. As an example, you can bake it in the roll, you can grill it, to cook it in the pan or if you are lucky enough to find a very fresh fish, you can just marinate it and eat it raw (Ceviche).

How to season white fish fillets?

The white fish has a fairly neutral taste. Which allows us to experiment with the final result that we will get. If you are a fish lover, then use simple spices that will bring out the fish taste: Salt, pepper, and a little lemon or lime. If you like spicy food, you can add various types of hot peppers, fresh garlic, or granulated garlic. If you don’t like the smell of the fish meat, you can camouflage its aroma with different types of aromatic herbs, such as basil, thyme, oregano,  dried tarragon, etc.