Mackerel with Spicy Orange Glaze

Thursday, 15th January 2015

Largely based on this BBC Good Food recipe, but since I had no harissa I substituted some Ras el hanout spices mixed with olive oil. The fish was firm and flavourful, despite what seemed like a long cooking time. The glaze was nicely tart and spicy, without being overpowering, although there was a slight harshness from the dried spices.

Catching up with the rest of 2014

Spareribs - glaze including orange marmelade, devon fire chutney and other random store-cupboard ingredients. Excellent.

Pheasant with glazed onions. Good flavour but the pheasant was rather tough.

Venison loin. Tender, flavoursome and delicious. Not quite as underdone as the photo suggests.

Shepherds pie. Very nostalgic, but perhaps a bit too cheesy.

Pork fillet flambé with apricots. Delicious and with some spectacular flambéing.

Meatballs and pasta. Lovely, fluffy but flavourful meatballs. Chilling before cooking helped to retain the right shape.

Herb crusted rack of veal. Looks good, but disappointingly sinewy veal, that needed at least 10 minutes more cooking.

Slow cooked pork with orange. Slow cooking resulted in lovely tender pork. The skin went into the oven separately at the end to crisp up and got a little bit too burned.

Venison with blueberries. Very nice flavour with the fruit, but not as tender as I had hoped.

Grilled mackerel. Simple and good but more attractive with the head and tail still on!

Crispy-skinned mackerel

Saturday, 8th November 2014

We're fortunate to have a small weekly market in the town where we live, with a fresh fish stall. So fish is often on the weekend menu now. Monika bought two very nice fresh mackerel and I used a recipe of Jamie's.
It was a pretty spicy and very garlicky sauce, although mine seemed much less runny than Jamie's, but the balance with the richness of the grilled fish was just right. We both elected to leave most of the sliced red chilli, but it did look pretty.