Cured Mackerel

When you get mackerel this fresh your best option is to not cook it. And there are plenty of ways not to cook mackerel. You could go the Japanese route and make Sashimi. Sashimi means “pierced body” and dates back to a time when it was inauspicious for anyone other than a Samurai to portion your fish.

Sashimi is usually served with soy sauce and wasabi paste, along with some pickled ginger. When we're out fishing, we usually take along a tube of wasabi and a bottle of soy sauce, in hope. And there’s often a potential Samurai warrior in the party who will gut and slice.

Ceviche is another way of not cooking fish. This time the fish is cured in citrus juice. This method spans a large part of the southern hemisphere, often adding a hot chile base to the juice.

Cold smoking is another way of preparing fish without heat, but for this particular batch of mackerel we opted for a northern hemisphere recipe, and prepared the fish the Swedish way, marinating it in salt and sugar. We made two versions of this Gravad Mackerel - one with elderflower and the other with bog myrtle.


Preparing the Mackerel:
Gut and fillet the mackerel, but leave the skin on. Slice away the fine bones at the belly of the fish, then cut either side of the central pin bones, and remove the central bones in one piece.

Mackerel marinated with Elderflower

Bog myrtle cured Mackerel with  scrambled egg, herb robert flowers

Curing the Fish:

Place six fillets of mackerel, skin side down, into a container that will fit all six comfortably. Sprinkle over the salt, pepper and sugar and then pack with the herbs. Top with the remaining six fillets, this time skin-side-up, and essentially reforming the fish with a herb stuffing. Place a small chopping board on the fish and weigh down with a bag of flour. Marinate for two to three days, turning each re-formed fish, morning and evening. To serve, remove the herbs, scrape off the seasonings and cut into very thin slices.




Elderflower Cured Mackerel

6 fillets of ultra fresh mackerel
4 tablespoons sea salt
2 tablespoons caster sugar
6 sprigs of elderflower in full bloom
liberal grinding of white pepper


Bog Myrtle and Fennel, Brown Sugar Cured Mackerel

6 fillets of ultra fresh mackerel
4 tablespoons sea salt
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
liberal grinding of black pepper
6 sprigs of bog myrtle
6 sprigs of fennel


Note: you can find bog myrtle in most boggy places in Ireland. It is the only thing that grows to any sort of height in a bog, and has a very distinctive fresh pine-like smell which repels insects.

I found the idea for the Bog Myrtle Cured Mackerel in Alan Davidson’s scholarly North Atlantic Seafood, from which this classic dill sauce also derives. I shall quote the passage from the book, it was just a footnote, but it gave us a good laugh:

“I found this recipe in the Skibereen [sic] area of Ireland; a region which has absorbed a number of alien ideas on cookery, and which used to have the only shop in the world for second-hand coffins (a result of the sinking of the Lusitania, the American relations of whose victims sent over American-style coffins to replace the hundreds which had been made locally). The herbs used for cured Carrigillihy mackerel are bog myrtle and fennel. Brown sugar and black pepper are employed instead of white. And the fish are ‘pressed between two congruent pieces of driftwood’”.


Alan Davidson’s Dill Sauce

4 tablespoons mustard
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 tablespoon caster sugar
2 tablespoons white vinegar

Oil (see below)
Chopped Dill

Mix the first four ingredients together in a bowl, then – using a wire whisk – beat in, little by little, 6 tablespoons vegetable oil until you have a sauce of the consistency of mayonnaise. Into this stir 3 or 4 tablespoons chipped dill. This sauce can be prepared in advance and refrigerated, but should be rewhisked before being served.
If you are using fennel, substitute this in the sauce instead of dill.