Raymond Blanc’s marinated and grilled mackerel looked so delicious when he demonstrated it on his recent show, that we were eager for the mackerel season to start and as this is my third consecutive mackerel post, you can be confident that the mackerel are around. No more mackerel posts for a while after this one, I promise.

It’s a nice meeting point between cerviche and heat-cooked fish – a gentle introduction to the cooking of fish by acidic foods. It enhances the flavour of the fish, but in a strange way, tempers it, so this might be a nice recipe for people who want to like mackerel but don’t rave about it. If you are a fan of this plentiful oily fish, then this is an interesting and attractive recipe to consider. It’s worth mentioning also that because there’s a lot of vinegar sloshing around, you get little to no lingering cooking smell.

So start with mackerel fillets (see how to fillet a mackerel here )

Then make your marinade by heating white wine vinegar, water, parsley (or coriander), sugar, red onion, pepper and slices of lemon in a saucepan until it’s warm, then transfer it into a wide, shallow container to cool.

It is the single most beautiful marinade I’ve ever seen.

Once the marinade is cold, place your mackerel fillets into it, flesh down and leave it for 20-30 mins.

At this point, you can marvel at the effect of the acidity on the flesh – turning it from this:

To this:

Now to complete the cooking. Heat your grill to high and oil a baking tray.

Remove the fillets from the marinade and pat them dry. Cut some slashes across the skin to stop them curling up and place them on the tray skin side up.

Grill them for around 4-5 mins, or until the skin has crisped and the fillet is cooked through.

Prepare a nice salad – I took advantage of seasonal asparagus – and serve the two together. The original recipe also features a fennel salad with a soy and lime dressing, but we wanted a plainer salad to appreciate the effect of the marinade on the fish. Had it not have been for the little knob of butter on the asparagus, it was unwittingly an incredibly healthy, low fat meal.

But more to the point, it was delicious and pretty.

Nicely flaking mackerel

All together and ready to devour. Yum.

Raymond Blanc’s full, unadulterated recipe is HERE

I only made the marinade and changed a couple of things out of convenience:

250ml white wine vinegar
250ml water
3 stalks parsley
40g caster sugar
small red onion, finely sliced
several turns of the peppermill
4 slices of lemon

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We’re having some strange weather again this Summer. It’s been cold enough to make you contemplate making a pot of stew, but yesterday it was hot again, with the Mother of all rain and murk arriving in the evening.

So what to make for dinner on these days? A strike down the middle;  warming, comforting pork chops and a healthy, tumbling portion of bright and beautiful Summer vegetables.

The vegetables are utterly versatile, really, you can chuck in whatever you like – carrots, green beans, fennel, aubergine, well anything! You could liberally strew some fresh herbs over the top for the last 10-15 mins of cooking if you fancied it. I would definitely get some of the fresh basil growing in the garden and tear at it.

I would if I had basil growing in the garden, but I don’t. I’d get one for the windowsill, but Gary (the male cat) would eat it. He likes green stuff. I don’t like cat spit all over my food, so I wouldn’t like that. Hey ho.

So, first pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 6/400F/200C, then have a look at the Summer veg

Sometimes I put the cannellini beans, more often, I don’t. Whatever moves you. After taking this pic, I found a courgette in the fridge, so I sliced that and chucked it in as well. Reckless and free.

So here is the punnet of cherry tomatoes, 2 red onions- cut into thin wedges, the sliced courgette (zucchini), a red pepper- seeded and chunked, and a tin of cannellini beans that I had emptied into a sieve and rinsed. Who puts sludge in the bottom of the tins, I ask you?

Fling them into the roasting tin and drizzle over some light olive oil, some freshly milled salt and black pepper and 2 garlic cloves that you have unfashionably crushed. I say unfashionably, because it’s all about squashing them in their little papers and chopping them nowadays, but I like the garlic in this to be very small and a bit on the fierce side, so none of that ‘slow-baking in its jacket will mellow it out’ junk in this recipe.

Turn it around to cover it all and admire. Pure Summer. Cover it loosely with some foil and bung it in the oven for about 30 mins.

After 30 mins, take it out of the oven, remove the foil and increase the oven temperature to gas mark 8/450F/230C.

It looks pretty unchanged huh? You can see the tomato skins pinching up a bit, but there’s no real change. That’s why we’re going to blast them in the furnace. Stick it up to gas mark 9 if you like them charred.

Charred in a good way, not in a ‘When cooking women dispose of their husband’s body’ way or ‘When good housewives go bad’ or ‘Women do the funniest things’. OK, I’ve finished. It hurt my feminist sentiments, typing that out.

Carry on letting this glorious concoction roast away for a good 30 mins. Keep an eye on them though – they’ll catch at the edges and it really is in your interest to periodically give them a stir to bring the edges into the middle.

I took them out at about 25 mins, because I didn’t want it too pappy, but we decided that we do like them a bit more cooked down; you can’t go wrong really. Even if they’re completely underdone, they’re only hot crudites.

Here they are finished

I stirred a couple of tblsp of balsamic vinegar in, just to keep the flavour lively. It tastes so delicious, and you know it’s good for you. Makes you feel seasonal and virtuous.

So you need to do something about that. You need to cook some meat. That’ll redress the balance.

There you are! Raw slabs of meat! Pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper and thrust under the grill for about 8 mins each side.

Ta da! We like the crusty bits on the edges. We really, really like pork chops to have a bone inside and some rind, but this was all I could get, so you know.  It’s not like I substituted it with hedgehog, so don’t be ungrateful.

We had to have some broccoli and sweetcorn cut off the cob. Alex likes those vegetables with every meal. EVERY meal. I used to love sweetcorn passionately, but frankly, we need a break from each other.

The thing is, it’s my fault really.
Shouldn’t have shown him how to press each piece of corn onto his front teeth to give you that instant ‘ain’t never brushed my teeth’ look.
I still do it better than him. He has much to learn.

Dinner’s ready! Btw, this is Ian’s portion, not Alex’s. I’m not insane.

The pork was juicy and crispy, the roasted veg is so flavoursome, silky and yielding. The easiest meal, but so utterly delicious.

The leftover veg, ahhhh yes. You could reheat it and have it warm like a salad accompaniment, or just cold with a salad. Try it with some meat and mayonnaise in a sandwich. Oh yeah baby. Looks like carnage, but tastes far better than carnage. Ever eaten carnage? Do let me know so that I can alert the police.

Here’s the instructions again, sans wittering:

Roasted Summer Veggies

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1 tin cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 red onions, peeled (duh) and cut into slender wedges
1 courgette, sliced
I box cherry tomatoes
I red pepper, chunked
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
drizzle of light olive oil
freshly ground salt and black pepper
balsamic vinegar to drizzle on after cooking (optional)

Preheat oven to GM6/400F/200C
Put vegetables into a roasting tin, drizzle with oil, add crushed garlic and salt and pepper. Mix to combine.
Loosely cover with foil and bake for 30 mins.
Remove tin from oven and increase temperature to GM8/450F/230C
Remove foil, stir veggies and return uncovered tin to the oven.
Continue to cook for another 25-30 minutes. If you like your veggies more on the charred side, then up the oven temperature and leave them in for longer. Do periodically check them and give them a stir.

When cooked, remove from oven, check seasoning and add a splash (2 tbsp or so) of balsamic vinegar to them and give them another stir.
Serve hot (oh! mind your mouth!), lukewarm or cold with a salad. This makes a large quantity, so feel free to reduce quantities as you wish. One word of caution, don’t over-fill the roasting tin too much, otherwise you don’t give it a chance to do anything but steam.

Pork Chops

Preheat grill to medium.
Remove 4 pork chops from the wrapper. Wipe them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill for about 8-10 mins each side.

Serve with the roasted veg and some fresh green veg.

Cereal. It has its place, but sometimes it’s not even a chore, not even unpleasant, it just IS.

Time to pep it up a bit. Ian has been pouring yogurt over the top, but that all got a bit milky and shudder inducing half-way through and there’s a limit to the quantity of dried fruit you can strew over it all before you get over-developed jaw muscles.

If only greek yogurt wasn’t generally so high fat and more to the point, expensive… Then we heard about straining yogurt and allowing it to sit overnight. The texture is transformed. It’s a miracle – a miracle, I tell ye!

Spoon over some sweet, poached fruit and bliss follows.

Here’s what I do.  Do this tonight and you too could eat this in the morning.

Place a sieve over a bowl and line it with 2 sheets of kitchen roll.

Pour a carton of plain yogurt into it.

Turn the corners in on the 3rd sheet of kitchen roll and place on top of the yogurt.
Put into the fridge overnight, or at least for a few hours.

Next morning, get impressive contraption out of fridge.

Peel back top layer of kitchen roll – really, it will peel off! See how firm… but shrunken it is? (Such a shame to have both those words in one phrase.)

Have another bowl waiting and flop the now solid yogurt into the bowl and peel off the bottom two sheets of paper.

Admire the amount of liquid in the bottom of the sieve bowl, then pour it away. If you’re my Mother, you can repeatedly complain about the smell of the liquid. It doesn’t bother me, but I have a husband who goes fishing, a 4 yr old son and 2 cats, so unpleasant smells aren’t exactly a rarity in my life.
Anyway.

Witchcraft. It is now the consistency of cream cheese. Low fat tastes high fat. Runny becomes velvety-firm. Spooky.

Spoon a portion into a small (big?) bowl and drizzle with honey and maybe some nuts and succulent dates or… spoon on top of some cereal and bathe with …poached plums!

Want to poach your plums? Here we go then.

Acquire a punnet of fruit. I’ve used peaches, nectarines and as pictured here, plums. Cut them in half and remove the stones.

Pour 6-7 tbsp sugar and 250ml/1 cup cold water into a large saucepan (mine is about 8″/20cm across)on a low heat.

Swirl around to dissolve the sugar into the water. Increase the heat to medium and simmer for 2 minutes.

Add the halved, stoned fruit to the saucepan – skin side down. Simmer gently for another 2-3 minutes or until they are beginning to soften around the edges (this can take much, much longer for larger or under-ripe fruit).

Turn them over and simmer for about 4/5 minutes (see above caveat for different fruit).

Once they are softened, not to mush, but so that there is no unexpected chomping to be done, spoon each fruit out into the waiting bowl.

If, like these little burlesque numbers, the skin is falling off their shoulders (look at them! Hussies!), go ahead and remove them. Likewise if you, like my husband, are sniffy about skin on poached fruit, equip yourself with a fork and a knife and remove as much skin as you can (be bothered to).

Increase the heat under the saucepan and enthusiastically simmer (as opposed to boil) the remaining liquid for a couple of minutes. I used to boil the remainder without mercy, but it goes too syrupy and I feel like we’re after more of a hint of syrup to it. Pour the beautiful juice over the plums.
Cool, then refridgerate. These keep in the fridge for several days. I put the bowl in the fridge, my husband eats them, I re-fill…etc.

Serve as they are, with ice cream, rice pudding or for breakfast with cereal and spooky yogurt.

Like this:

Gooooooooooood morning spooky yogurt and plums!

Here are the recipes once more, with feeling:

Spooky yogurt

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1 carton of plain yogurt – low fat, full fat – doesn’t matter – in fact, as many cartons as you can fit into your sieve.
1 sieve
3 squares of good kitchen roll ( I use Plenty – Bounty, as was)

Place a sieve over a bowl.
Line your sieve with 2 sheets of kitchen roll.
Pour the carton of plain yogurt into it.
Turn the corners in on the 3rd sheet of kitchen roll and place on top of the yogurt.
Put into the fridge overnight, or at least for a few hours.

Next morning, get impressive contraption out of fridge.
Peel back top layer of kitchen roll – really, it will peel off!
Have another bowl waiting and flop the now solid yogurt into the bowl and peel off the bottom two sheets of paper.
Admire the amount of liquid in the bottom of the sieve bowl, then pour it away.

It is now the consistency of cream cheese. Spoon a portion into a small (big?) bowl and drizzle with honey and maybe some nuts and succulent dates or… spoon on top of some cereal and bathe with poached plums!

(BTW, my Mum tried it with flavoured yogurt without any satisfaction. It seems like the flavouring and sweetness all drips away with the liquid, so save yourself some heartache and money and just buy the low fat cheap stuff – this carton only cost 46p!).

Poaching Plums

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400g Punnet of plums, halved and stone removed (or peaches, nectarines, damsons – although you might want to seriously up the sugar for damsons)
6-7 tbsp sugar
250ml/ 1 cup cold water

Pour the sugar and water into a large saucepan (mine is about 8″/20cm across)on a low heat. Swirl around to dissolve the sugar into the water. Increase the heat to medium and simmer for 2 minutes.
Add the halved, stoned fruit to the saucepan – skin side down. Simmer gently for another 2-3 minutes or until they are beginning to soften around the edges (this can take much, much longer for larger or under-ripe fruit).
Turn them over and simmer for about 4/5 minutes (see above caveat for different fruit).
Once they are softened, not to mush, but so that there is no unexpected chomping to be done, spoon each fruit out into the waiting bowl.

If the skin is falling off their shoulders, go ahead and remove them. Likewise, if you, like my husband, are sniffy about skin on poached fruit, equip yourself with a fork and a knife and remove as much skin as you can (be bothered to).
If, like my Mother, you consider your entrails with each bite of food you take, then leave them on. It’s between you and your preferences. And internal organs.

Anyway. Increase the heat under the saucepan and enthusiastically simmer (as opposed to boil) the remaining liquid for a couple of minutes. I used to boil the remainder without mercy, but it goes too syrupy and I feel like we’re after more of a hint of syrup to it.
Cool, then refridgerate. These keep in the fridge for several days.

Serve as they are, with ice cream, rice pudding or for breakfast with cereal and spooky yogurt.