Darina Allen: Three great ways to cook fresh fish like mackerel and pollock

Such excitement yesterday evening, we all piled into my son-in-law’s little fishing boat from the pier and Ballycotton. 

My youngest grandson Jago had just got his first fishing rod with a reel and flies, and was super excited. There’s scarcely been a mackerel seen in Ballycotton Bay all summer long, but the word was out - ‘the mackerel are in’. 

We puttered round the eastern side of Ballycotton Island, dropped a couple of lines over the edge and hey presto, a mackerel, and then four or five ‘silver darlings’, wiggling on the line. 

It wasn’t quite like old times when mackerel, (a brilliant source of essential omega fatty acids) were crazily plentiful, sadly a rare occurrence nowadays, but wildly exciting, nonetheless. 

Jago learned how to dispatch fish humanely and to gut and fillet them in mere minutes. Seagulls circulated overhead squabbling over entrails.

We had brought a little jam-jar of soy sauce and a tube of wasabi with us, on the off-chance that we might be fortunate enough to catch a fish. 

We all love crudo, so we sliced the first few fillets paper thinly, dipped them into soy sauce and wasabi to enjoy divine spanking fresh sashimi - so delicious and such fun to pass the skills down through the generations.

We also landed a couple of pollock, not a particularly flavourful fish but nonetheless delicious when really fresh. Try this pollock with tomato and fresh spices.

There’s a million ways to serve mackerel, I just love them pan-grilled or fried, slathered with a little miso or served with a blob of parsley and lemon butter or green gooseberry sauce to cut the richness. 

If perchance, you have a few green gooseberries in your freezer, make a simple sugar syrup, toss in some green berries and cook for just a few minutes until they burst, a brilliant tip from Jane Grigson’s Good Things cookbook from many years ago. 

The gooseberry season is well over by now but sadly the mackerel have only just arrived in Ballycotton and one never knows when we’ll be blessed with another catch.

Freshness is everything with fish, more and more of a challenge nowadays but if you can neither catch or source really fresh fish, how about some mussels?

Most supermarkets now sell little net bags of wild or cultivated mussels for just a few euro. They are incredibly good value and an excellent source of iron, cobalamin, vitamin C and many other good things and are cooked in mere minutes. 

One of my favourite simple suppers is a bowl of freshly opened mussels with homemade mayonnaise, a few slices of freshly baked brown soda bread and a leafy green salad.

Mackerel has always been part of the Irish diet but nowadays has become a rare treat because of an inadequate and patently unfair European policy over more than a decade. 

Several of the Nordic countries including Norway and Iceland are legally allowed to land three times Ireland’s quota of mackerel to process it into fish meal as a source of salmon and animal feed. 

Surely, high-value mackerel from Irish waters should be used for human consumption not as animal feed in other countries.

If you feel strongly about this subject, pick up your pen, write to your TD, and call for an urgent change of policy, it’s the 11th hour.

Meanwhile, I give thanks for the few beautiful fresh fish we managed to catch during the summer season.

Warm poached mackerel with bretonne sauce

recipe by:Darina Allen

Fresh mackerel gently poached and served warm with this simple sauce is an absolute feast - creamy and enhanced with a mustard twist

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 10 mins

Total Time

 20 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 4 fresh mackerel

• 1.2l water

• 1 tsp salt

• 55g butter, melted

• 2 egg yolks

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

• 2 tsp white wine vinegar

• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped, or a mixture of chervil, chives, tarragon and fennel, chopped

Method

1. Cut the heads off very fresh mackerel. Gut and clean them but keep whole. Bring the water to the boil,  add the salt and the mackerel. Bring back to boiling point, and remove from the heat. After about 5-8 minutes, check to see whether the fish are cooked. The flesh should lift off the bone. It will be tender and melting.

2. To make the sauce, melt the butter and allow to boil.

3. Put the egg yolks into a bowl, add the mustard, wine vinegar and the herbs, mix well.

4. Whisk the hot melted butter into the egg yolk mixture little by little so that the sauce emulsifies. Keep warm, by placing the pyrex bowl in a saucepan of hot but not boiling water.

5. When the mackerel is cool enough to handle, remove to a plate. Skin, lift the flesh carefully from the bones and arrange on a serving dish. Coat with the sauce and serve while still warm with a green salad and new potatoes.

Pollock with Tomatoes and Fresh Spices

recipe by:Darina Allen

Spread the tomato topping sparingly on the fish fillets – otherwise the delicate flavour of the fish will be overpowered rather than enhanced. Haddock or ling may be used also.

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 20 mins

Cooking Time

 35 mins

Total Time

 55 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 1.1kg thick pollock fillets cut into 6 x 175g pieces, skinned

• ¼ tsp salt

• pinch of cayenne pepper

• ¼ tsp ground turmeric

• Spicy Tomato Topping:

• 4 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tsp scant fennel seeds

• 1 tsp scant mustard seeds

• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

• 175g onion, finely chopped

• 1-2 tsp ground cumin seeds

• 1 tsp salt

• a little pinch of cayenne pepper

• ½-1 tsp sugar

• 450g very ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped or 1 x 400g tin tomatoes, chopped

• ¼ teaspoon of Garam Masala

• fresh coriander

Method

1. Mix the salt, cayenne pepper and turmeric together and sprinkle over both sides of the fish fillets. Cover and leave aside while you make the sauce. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. When it is hot, add the fennel and mustard seeds which will start to pop in a few seconds. (Be careful as they burn really easily. If the spices burn, start again - burnt spices will ruin the finished dish). Then add the crushed garlic and chopped onions. Continue to cook until the onions turn golden, then add the ground cumin, salt and cayenne pepper and sugar. Stir and then add the tomatoes and juice, finally the Garam masala. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4.

3. Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan, brown the chunky pieces of fish on both sides (this step is optional) and remove to a warm oven proof serving dish. Cover with the tomato sauce and bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until the fish is just cooked. Garnish with coriander sprigs. Serve with new potatoes and a good green salad.

4. Note: Be careful not to overdo the cayenne!

Crudo with Salmon Eggs and Fennel Flowers

recipe by:Darina Allen

This recipe inspired a dish I enjoyed in a restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour in Australia. Wild fennel grows along the roadside in many areas and is in flower at present.

Servings

10

Preparation Time

 30 mins

Total Time

 30 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 450g very fresh mackerel, bream or sea bass

• freshly squeezed juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon

• salmon eggs

• 24 - 50 fennel sprigs (or flowers in season) depending on size

• flaky sea salt

Method

1. Chill the starter plates.

2. Fillet the fish, if necessary, spoon some of the freshly squeezed juice over the fish. Cover and chill for 15-20 minutes depending on thickness. Slice into paper thin slices. Arrange in a line of overlapping slices in the centre of the plate, spoon little blobs of salmon eggs along the middle and decorate with fennel sprigs and flowers in season. Serve immediately.

Seasonal Journal

National Organic Food Fair 2024

The Organic Trust will be hosting the National Organic Food Fair 2024 in Merrion Square on Saturday, 31st August and Sunday, 1st September in partnership with Bord Bia and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

There will be cookery demonstrations using only organic produce, a range of food exhibitors, music, face painting and much more….

• For more information, see www.organictrust.ie/food-fair

How to cook mussels

You may want to scrape off any barnacles from wild mussel shells, but this is not essential. Remove the beard (the little tuft of tough ‘hair’ which attached the mussel to the rock or rope it grew on). 

Wash the mussels well in several changes of cold water. Then spread them in a single layer in a pan, covered with a folded tea-towel or the lid and cook over a gentle heat - no need to add any liquid. 

This usually takes 2-3 minutes; the mussels are cooked just as soon as the shells open (cockles and palourdes can be cooked in the same way). Remove them from the pan immediately, or they will shrink in size and become tough.

Wild Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

A perennial herb (green and bronze versions) that grows wild around the South and West coast of Ireland. All parts of the plant are edible - root, stalks, leaves, flowers and seeds. It has an anise/liquorice flavour. 

The yellow flowers have an even more intense flavour and give a delicious burst of flavour to salad and garnishes. The pollen from the flowers is considered to be a cheffy luxury, collect it by shaking the flowers onto a sheet of paper, store in a small glass jar. 

The fennel seeds may be dried and used as a spice.

Wild fennel is really good served with fish and pork.

Book of the Week - Whole Catch

Check out Whole Catch by Aisling Moore of Goldie Restaurant in Cork City, published by Blasta Books, which has a feast of delicious, easy-to-cook seafood recipes and lots of suggestions for fish head to tail eating - a gem!