Apart from just plain grilled how would you cook two nice fresh mackerel, and what's best to serve with them. Nice tasty ideas would be appreciated.

I usually have them with wild rice and roasted veg or gnocchi with parmesan.

I remember a Delia recipe that involved stuffing them with pesto mash which sounded really good too.

Simple but tasty - bake them with home-made chips on shelf above. I just place the whole, gutted mackerel in an oiled dish (can stuff them with herbs, e.g. dill) place on centre shelf (Mk. 5 for 30 - 35 mins) with - 2 shelves up from this - chips (rolled in oil, maybe some paprika, and salt) on an oiled baking sheet.
Should both be done at the same time, depending on how thick the chips are and whether there are too many!

You could go crazy and replace the chips (same shelf) with sliced courgettes and red peppers, oiled - roast veg.

Thanks, both these suggestions sound yummy, I'm really looking forward to them now.

I like to souse mackeral and serve with a salad and some crusty bread.

ohh I forgot about that, my mum used to do those and they were gorgeous. How would you do those, just with onion rings and vinegar? and how long do you cook yours.

Place whole mackeral in a shallow dish with a sliced onion, bay leaf and peppercorns.

Mix together 1/4 pint malt vinegar, 5tbsp water, 1tsp sugar, 1/2tsp salt and pour over fish.

Cover dish and cook at 170c for about 30mins (larger fish will take longer). I turn the fish halfway through cooking.

Leave in the dish until cool (although I've had them warm as well)

Rick Stein did Deviled Mackerels as he said they could stand up to the spice. Basically make a spice rub with the usual suspects and then rub it into the fillets and fry them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddr...small-fry.html

I've done similar but with Thai/SE Asian spices and served with a fennel salad.

Here is a recipe that combines both
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/de...erelwith_89421

I usually just grill it and have new potatoes with it. Remember mackerel's very high in calories compared to other fish.

When you say fresh mackerel, how fresh are they.

Mackerel do not keep well at all. They can go off literally within hours in hot weather.

As for freezing. Freezing generally kills the taste for most fish, but for most of us we don't have a choice.

My neighbours bringing me some in the morning from the local fishmongers so I hope they'll be as fresh as she says!! Interesting comments about frozen fish tho. Thanks.

If you like mackerel, try smoked mackerel. Very tasty and generally available from supermarkets.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/smoked_mackerel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoked_fish

Nigiri.

When we used to go to my uncle's in Ireland we went mackerel fishing and were eating them with chips just an hour and a half after catching them from the Irish sea. Can't get fresher than that!

I've caught mackerel in Devon waters and sometimes they were lifted out of the sea, gutted and put straight into a frying pan, fried with butter. Mackerel are very attracted to shiny spinners and wiggly sand eels (e.g. Eddystone Eels) pulled from behind a boat (trolling).

http://www.anglingcentre.net/macktext.html

http://www.eddystoneeel.com/EDEEL.htm

Fish just don't have the freshly caught flavour once they've been frozen or even packed in ice (which stops them going off), that really fresh fish do.

I used to also catch plaice. The day before I'd dig up some lugworm from the local creek, which is a pretty messy business wading around in knee deep mud. Then to catch them, I'd motor down to the sandy bar at the mouth of the estuary and row with the tide, having a weighted spoon with a lugworm attached dragged along the sea bed. The plaice would try and take the lugworm from what looks to them to be a smaller flatfish and would get hooked up in the process.

This is the way I normally eat them. Quick, easy tasty.

Because mackerel is so rich and oily, the main problem is that sometimes it "repeats" on me for a few hours. So I always try to offset that rich burpy oiliness with something sharp or spicy or a salad. It doesn't really work, but still I try! Maybe I should try sousing...do you think the vinegar helps with this, Roni-J?

I usually devil it, have it with gooseberry sauce when I pick the gooseberries (highly recommended) or curry it using a south Indian recipe. I also quite often flake it into salads and pasta, especially the smoked stuff.

Coincidentally this recipe was on the Rick Stein segment on Saturday Kitchen last week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01c2zqs/?t=22m42s