Mackerel

So here it is, my first foray into the world of recipe blogging, and before I share with you my dinner for this evening, I'd like to invite you to take a look at what are, in my opinion, some of the best food blogs on the net. First my all time favourite:

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/

which has wonderful recipes such as refried beans, Quesadillas, ginger pancakes and many more Tex-Mex delights.

Next, and also highly recommended:

http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/

giving every gluten/wheat intolerant new hope and a new joy for food.

I'll be sure to update the minute I find other food blogs which are really worth shouting about. And now, Mackerel. I have to confess that I have never cooked a fish in my life. Dash, my boyfriend, thinks they're smelly, slimy and disgusting, and I'm OK with that, he's very unfussy about most other food so we can have exciting meals, sans fish. However, today he left to visit his parents for four days so I decided to have a little culinary adventure. I popped to Sainsbury's, chose the cheapest fish - a mackerel, watched; I have to say with some dismay; as it was "topped and tailed" before my eyes, and then asked the man on the counter if it had any bones in, he said "no", he was lying.

It was when I got home that I was so glad I have watched over the years hours and hours of what Dash fondly refers to as "Lizzie porn" - I'm referring to Ready Steady Cook, Saturday Kitchen, Master Chef, Chinese Food Made Easy and the whole host of other food programmes which I insist on watching, to the exclusion of all else, any time they are on (so long as they don't feature bloody Nigella Lawson!). I have to say, "thank you Ainsley Harriet for teaching me how to bone a fish" because I needed it today!

Ingredients - to feed 1

• 1 Mackerel
• real butter (salted) - about 1tbsp
• 1/4 lemon
• salt and pepper
• frozen sweetcorn and broccoli
• few sprigs fresh parsley
• 1 medium potato

The fish and the veg cook very fast, so it's best to prepare the potato first, I peeled mine and cut it into bite-size chunks and put them to boil in salted water. Then I put about 2tsp butter into a griddle pan and put the fish, cut into fillets with bones removed, skin-side down, I then dusted the flesh-side with salt and pepper (in hindsight, not quite enough, but it's better to under-season and add more later). When the fish was cooked about half way through I turned it over so the flesh-side was down, it was at this point I put the broccoli and sweetcorn on to boil and chopped the parsley finely. A chef would probably say that I overcooked the fish, but I like it crispy, when it was golden brown on both sides I turned of the heat and let it rest while I drained the veg and potatoes. I put a little butter over the vegetables and potatoes and seasoned them with salt, pepper and parsley, I also scattered a little parsley over the fish and finished it with a squeeze of lemon.
Bon appetit!

A very successful experiment, though perhaps I will remove the skin next time as I did find it a little too greasy as Mackerel is a very oily fish.