Mackerel?

From where?

They're hardly jumping out of the sea on the Holderness coast

You were a banker on being aghast.



Visited Roach's on Witty Street.
Got mackerel, smoked haddock, crab cakes, smoked haddock mozzarella and spring onion fishcakes, mussels, king prawns and calamari.

To be fair it's all frozen cr@p but I'll enjoy anyway.
Wouldn't mind trying a bit of your fresh mackerel, stuffed with garlic, red chilli, spring onion with a splash of olive oil, baked in oven at a pre-heated 180 for 15 mins.

Mackerel in its raw (as opposed to smoked) state does not freeze well at all. I don't particularly like the stuff, I find the flavour too strong except when eaten raw as sashimi or cured in salt, sugar and dill as Gravad Max (see what I did there?). Mackerel starts to deteriorate as soon as it's pulled from the sea. I wouldn't even use it for bait if it's more than 24 hours old and I put it straight onto ice as soon as it comes over the gunwhale.

If you are going to buy frozen macherel, buy fillets, preferrably butterflied fillets. Cook from frozen in a lightly oiled, heavy base frying pan. That's the only way to stop them turning to absolute mush.

Roach's are good but if you want frozen shellfish, try Chong Wah Chinese supermarket on Union Street

Bit of a fanny so don't know if I could do it raw.
They were fillets I purchased and yep very strong salty flavour.
Just do them in oven for convenience but make sure back kitchen door is ajar.

I needed to top up on some spices for my lime pickle so called in at my local Morrison's and was delighted to see they now list their own spices alphabetically. I couldn't resist going into "Countdown mode"



I've heard Tesco have a far greater range of alphabet spices, so I may pop into the next one I find

I like the mackerel raw as Coddy says in a sashimi - goes well with tuna & salmon on a rice bed in a chirashi for example

like you two, I come from an east coast fishing port and poo pooed the idea of eating raw fish until I tried it in a chinky buffet restaurant by chance a few years back and have been hooked on it ever since

good for the brain cells apparently WZ !

I've got none left to be good for.

yep.....................all that booze, typical jock !

Jock?

Elvis Presley spent more time in Scotland than WIZEB ever did

True but I did spend the first 6 months of my life there before I was kidnapped and delivered to East Yorkshire.
Scotlands loss was Englands gain.

Some years ago, I was in Heal's in Manchester and they had a few shelves of large, chunky, white coffee mugs with a bold blue initial on each.
Someone had arranged four of them into the C word.
Was that you?

Sorry no.

On the Countdown Spice front, the options are limited with no one stocking any spices beginning with K or U

erhh........................ok

Last night we had this, with tuna instead of the anchovies, also freshly-podded raw peas, green beans, french-dressed cos lettuce, crunchy croutons etc etc ... and incorporated La Senora's first crop of french beans into it.
I could feel my body saying thank you.

Nice.

Not the tinned stuff I hope.

Apart from not eating offal, I also never eat anything grey or drink anything blue.

But back to anchovies, Lidl are currently flopping out Spanish white anchovy fillet in garlic & parsley oil or simply "spiced" oil. I also recently bought two types of frozen anchovies from a Chinese supermarket. One lot are around 3" long, frozen whole and must be headed, gutted and filleted, the others are baby anchovies, headless and about one inch in length, great in a seafood stir fry. But by far my favourite anchovy dish is the one served on Lesbos, fresh from the sea, they are dusted in flour, heads squeezed together and deep fried like whitebait

All this talk of anchovies! Just a week tomorrow ...

[url=http://www.thecriticalcouple.co.uk/blog/This[/url guy made a good effort with his potatoes.

... or cod because it's a bottom-feeder ... but you'll happily eat crab


Picky bvgger.

Anyways ...usually it's fresh-ish looking tuna steak (probably defrosted from frozen at the mongers), fried in a stripy pan and cut into strips or cubes.
Cooked right through mind, none of that seared nonsense or sashimi lookey-likey. (Same goes for swordfish for me, I can be picky too you know).

This time, however, it came from a tin ... not the grey or even pinky-grey type, it was the pale-beige, a lighter-flavoured tuna, cut from a different part of the body I think, not salty and in a light olive oil, from a Spanish company ... can't check properly because the tin was taken away in the recycling.

You'd have loved last night's calves liver, offal-ly nice with onions, fresh peas, sauted cubed spuds and a light marsala sauce.



I never eat or drink anything blue though, you'll be pleased to note.
Oh, except red cabbage, which is blue-ish when raw, hence the Germans call it blaukraut.

The most popular fish on my van is salmon. Not this Norwegian or Scottish farmed bollox but North Atlantic wild salmon, I have only known one customer buy it and not re-order and that was simply because she liked to pan-fry hers to crisp the skin (ours are skinless and guaranteed boneless). I did once have a woman ask if it was organic and she seemed genuinely shocked that I couldn't guarantee it was organic simply because it was wild and for all I knew it could've been eating in McDonalds.

What I dislike about farmed salmon is ...
a) The white stripes of fat that you don't get to the same extent on wild salmon.
b) It's a predator, it should be swimming free and catching its own food, you wouldn't cage tigers for food. There's no such thing as free-range farmed salmon.
c) You never know how sustainably-obtained is the fish meal on which farmed salmon is fed. Massive wastage via by-catch with the fish that goes into the meal is very common. The meal could be from fish that were bottom-trawled, destroying habitats of many other species in the process. That meal could be from fish that we could eat instead.
Hence I don't see farming salmon as sustainable.

Isn't wild Atlantic salmon on the danger list?

Given the amount I sell it should be

Great shoals of mackeral jumping out of the sea at Robin Hoods Bay last week. Fishermen having to drag their hauls up the bank. Mainly mackeral, but some small cod and a single bass.

Love mackeral highly spiced with a paste made of lemon juice, turmeric, chilli powder, garlic, black cummin seeds and the miraculous asafoetida. Rub some into the skin and stuff the rest inside the fish. Hold it all together in a fish rack then grill on the barbie for about 6 or 7 minutes, turning occasionally until skin blackens and squeezing more lemon juice over the skin as it cooks. Sprinkle with salt and fresh coriander to serve.

Unfortunately, mackeral must be cooked outside for the sake of your house, but it's well worth the effort, I believe.

Robin Hoods Bay...you lucky person! My favourite place in the world!

Very good point !
Delicious but smelly.
Same for kippers, which I only have when staying in an hotel.