Two homemade mackerel recipes

There are products on which there is something like a consensus in society. In the case of fish products, these are, for example, sturgeon and salmon. Everyone, well, or almost everyone agrees that this is certainly a tasty thing, a date with which is always pleasant and festive. There are fish, a meeting with which is not festive, but is not marked with a current in any way. It’s zander or cod. It is clear that it matters how they are prepared, what quality the source material is, but in general, zander and cod do not cause strong emotions in society.

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• Fish and Seafood

There are fish that are annoying. Pollock with his Soviet reputation. Completely undeserved, mind you. Or capelin with its biography of cat food. But mackerel, like olives or capers, has both enthusiastic fans and an impressive regiment of those who do not want to endure it. The latter, however, is understandable. This is a fatty fish, with a very expressive, bright, full-bodied taste. A taste that makes you think, a taste that subjugates the entire food environment. Take at least a truffle with mackerel. Put them together and it’s mackerel and truffle, not the other way around. Overexpressive, that’s what it is. The same truffle, many can not stand just for this. Just like there is an army of enemies of complex Scotch whiskey, from which one smells like a wet felt boot near the stove.

Most often in our stores, mackerel is sold as cold-smoked carcasses. This is a decent, but not the best way for her to exist. It is much better in a hot-smoked form, but especially fresh. By the way, mackerel tolerates freezing quite well, the main thing is that it is frozen in its freshest form and its fat does not have time to go rancid, and this happens quickly with fish oil. The freshness of frozen mackerel, however, you will quickly determine for yourself. Stale mackerel both in the pan and before the pan smells so that everything immediately becomes clear.

An important part of working with this fish is not to overcook it too much: the meat becomes dryish. And the taste of smoked mackerel or salty, which seems sharp to someone, is perfectly trimmed with sour-milk products. Add sour cream, cottage cheese or cream to smoked mackerel – and you will see how its best properties will be revealed more strongly, and the worst ones will fade into the background. Fried mackerel is good to serve with fashionable refreshing side dishes – lettuce, citrus fruits, crispy vegetables.

Mackerel with orange and celery

For 4 persons

Preparation: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 mackerel fillets
• 3 orange
• 4 celery
• 2 garlic cloves
• 50 ml olive oil
• 10 ml sherry vinegar 2 bay leaves
• Salt, ground black pepper to taste

Preparation

Grate the zest from one orange. Peel off the skin of all oranges and cut the flesh into neat segments with a thin, sharp knife. Cut the celery stalks into thin slices and simmer them in boiling salted water for a minute. In a bowl, mix the zest, orange pulp segments, celery, a little olive oil and sherry vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat, sauté the bay leaf and the peeled garlic clove in it so that the flavors infuse the oil. Salt and pepper the mackerel fillet, fry the fish pieces in oil on both sides – about 2 minutes each.

Serve the finished fish with a salad of orange and celery.

Mackerel Riet

For 8 people

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 400 g hot smoked mackerel
• 200 g cream cheese
• 1,5 st. l. creamy horseradish
• Half of lemon
• Noodle noodles
• Pepper black ground

Preparation

Remove the skin from the fish, separate the fillet, carefully cleaning it of bones and remnants of the entrails. Transfer the fillet to a blender bowl, add cheese (170-200 g, it all depends on the size of the mackerel and taste preferences) and creamy horseradish (again, you can put 2 tablespoons, and even more).

Squeeze lemon juice, pepper. Pass through a blender. Chop the chives, add to the pate and mix – already with a spoon, there is no need to grind it.

You can eat immediately after cooking.