4.) Lime and chili grilled mackerel
Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch seafood-buying guide has high praise for mackerel. The guide recommends most mackerel products for sale in the United States as “Best Choices.”
From the Scombridae family, mackerel is related to bonito and tuna, and like those fish, it has a pink-hued flesh. Known as “saba” in Japanese, mackerel is a favorite of sushi connoisuers. It’s an oily fish, rich in Omega-3s, and the touted by the food blug Epicurious as “cheap, healthy, and sustainable.”
Some find the flavor of mackerel fishy, but that can be avoided by ensuring it is bought and cooked when freshly caught. If the speckling on the skin has faded and the skin is looking dried out, expect the taste to be fishier.
Laura Howells-Barby and her husband, Matthew, founded Pescetarian in 2014 to make it simple for those wishing to eat more seafood to find a huge variety of simple and culturally diverse seafood and fish recipes. Howells-Barby writer is well-versed in using mackerel, as she’s from the U.K., where it is more commonly eaten. To complement and lift the fish’s high oil, she brightens it with lime and chili, then a fresh burst of cilantro.
Lime and chili grilled mackerel
Ingredients
- Juice of 2 limes
- 1 red chili, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 thumb of ginger, minced
- 2 handfuls fresh coriander/cilantro, finely chopped
- 1 lime or lemon, sliced into discs
- 3 whole mackerel
Method
- Begin by mixing together the lime juice, chili, garlic, soy sauce and half of the coriander/cilantro in a bowl and put to one side.
- Get each of the whole mackerel and clean inside and out by running under cold water. Then score each fish 4 sides on each side. The scores should be in a diagonal direction and should just reach the bone. This will allow the marinade to soak into the fish when cooking.
- Pour the marinade over the fish, making sure you turn the fish, so that the marinade gets into both sides. You don't want to have any marinade left so make sure you use it all.
- Put the fish in large tray, cover with foil and leave in the fridge to marinate for a minimum of 3 hours.
- When you're ready to cook your fish, put the grill on a medium heat, add you slices of lime or lemon into the fish tray, along with the other half of your coriander/cilantro and place the fish in the grill (make sure you're using a tray that can withstand high temperatures in the oven). I usually find that mackerel takes around 20-25 minutes in the grilled, depending on how crispy you want the skin to be. You will know the fish is done when you can place a fork into the deepest part of the fish; the fish should be white and flake easily. If the fish is looking a little translucent, put in back in the grill for another 3-5 minutes.
- Remove the fish from the grill and serve up
