A nice light starter, perfect for a dinner party and impressing your friends or nice for a light lunch. The secret is nice fresh mackerel, and a delicate touch.
Ingredients
- 2 mackerel fillets, pin boned (Ask your fishmonger to do this for you)
- 1 large potato
- 1 large sweet potato
- Small handful of chives
- 1 lime
- 1 lemon
- 50g butter
- Small handful of dill
- Olive oil
- Small handful watercress
- 1 pomegranate
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Ask you fishmonger to skin one of the mackerel fillets if your not confident doing this yourself, and leave the skin on the other. Portion the one with skin on onto a small long strip and leave to one side.
- With the skinned mackerel fillet, diced as fine as you can with a knife and place in a bowl. Zest the lemon and lime into the mixture, plus the juice of the lemon. Season with salt and pepper and add the finely chopped dill, mx together and leave in the fridge to pickle.
- For the potato hash, diced the potato into a small dice. Cook in a frying pan with the butter for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through and start to come together like a rough mash, add the chopped chives last minute to retain their colour. Mould with a ring into small patties and leave to chill.
- Deseed the pomegranate by cutting in half and tapping lightly on the back of the pomegranate with the back of your knife and the seeds should just pop out.
- To warm the hash through, heat in a frying pan until golden brown on one side then turn over and repeat on the other side this should take no longer than 5-6 minutes
- Whilst the hash is heating through, heat a frying pan and until nice and hot and place the mackerel skin side down in the olive oil. You will need to press down either with your fingers or a fish slice to stop the fillet curling up at the sides. Leave to cook on the skin until it is nice and golden brown and crispy, once it has reached this stage turn the fillet over and cook on the flesh side for no more than 1 minute, leave to rest before plating for a couple of minutes.
- To dress the plate, spoon on the mackerel ceviche into a nice neat pile or use a ring. Place the heated potato hash on the plate. Put a nice plush of watercress in between these two items and sprinkle the pomegranate seeds over the watercress and a little bit of the juice.
- Place the cooked mackerel fillet over the ceviche and hash and over the watercress. Garnish with some fresh micro coriander and a little carrot puree dotted on the plate.
This recipe was provided to H&C News by Chef Craig Floate and we would like to thank Craig for his recipe, can’t wait to try it.
Craig provides a variety of chef services as detailed in his website
Craig can be contacted by phone on : 07845 083 793