Archive for the ‘Fish – Mackerel’ Category
Mackerel Patties
This is a basic recipe for mackerel patties using canned mackerel in brine, and basic certainly is best, these are excellent tasting patties.
Ingredients
- 1 can mackerel, in brine, (15 oz / 425 g)
- 1 sleeve saltine crackers, crushed
- 2 eggs
- black pepper, as desired
- vegetable oil, for frying, as needed
Instructions
- This is the can of mackerel I tested, Kroger brand, $2.29 per can. This is a product of Thailand.
- Open and drain the mackerel, add to a mixing bowl and break up with a fork.
- Add the crushed saltines and eggs to the bowl.
- Season with black pepper as desired, mix together.
- Shape into 4 patties. Heat a non stick pan with a tablespoon or two of olive oil, when hot, add the patties.
- Turn patties over when browned turn over and repeat for the other side, seasoning pepper as desired.
- Transfer the cooked patties to a serving plate.
- Serve with sides of your choice and enjoy.
Notes
Low cost in the US, about 67 cents per serving for 4 servings from 1 can. In Thailand however, I have never seen mackerel in cans like this, always the small cans and in tomato sauce. So I will come up with a way to make 'canned' mackerel, probably just boil some. Then I will come back with a report on that.
Mackerel Loaf
Canned mackerel is basically the low income version of canned salmon, and it is a delicious, and lower cost alternative to salmon. In Thailand, mackerel will come in small cans in tomato sauce, and is comparable with sardines. In the US, I seen canned mackerel in large cans (15 oz / 425 g) like salmon, and no tomato juice, so I picked up a can as I wanted to try it out. I tried it on 15 Jan 2020, made this loaf, and I must say, it is good, even my Dad liked this. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Equipment
- Oven
- Bread Pan
Ingredients
- 1 can mackerel, drained, (15 oz / 425 g)
- ½ cup bread crumbs, (Shortcut)
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup green bell pepper, diced
- ½ cup onion, diced
- ¼ cup milk
- ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- black pepper, as desired
Instructions
- Mackerel is packed like salmon, skin on and bone in, these 3 pieces are from 1 can. The bones are soft and the skin mixes right in, so just use this as is. (I took this photo just to show what it looks like when it comes out of the can.)
- Preheat your oven to 180° C (350° F). Grease a loaf pan with butter or olive oil.
- Add the mackerel to a mixing bowl and break the pieces apart with a fork.
- To the mixing bowl, add the remaining ingredients, and seasoning with pepper as desired.
- Use a large spoon and mix together.
- Pack mixture into the prepared loaf pan.
- Place in the oven and bake for about 45 to 50 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
- Cool on a rack for 10 minutes to firm up, then turn onto a plate for serving. Mine fell apart when turning it out, that is ok, it happens.
- Slice, serve with sides of your choice and enjoy. Chicken gravy goes surprisingly well with this.
Notes
Low cost.
Shortcut: Bread Crumbs.
Variants: 1. Use red bell pepper in place of green. 2. Add chopped hard boiled eggs. 3. Add sliced green olives. 4. Add a second can of mackerel. 5. Use crushed saltine crackers in place of bread crumbs.
Simple Fried Mackerel
Mackerel is an oily fish and is delicious without any sauces or special ingredients. This is the classic English way to prepare mackerel fillets with skin on. Three ingredients and about 2-3 minutes of cooking time is all that is needed. Overcooking mackerel will result in dry fish, so we do not want to do that.
Ingredients
- 2 mackerel fillets, skin on, pin bones removed
- salt, as desired
- olive oil, as needed
Instructions
- Here is my mackerel, these come frozen, two fillets to a pack, no bones are removed. First thing I did after this photo was remove the rib bones.
- Check the fillets and see if the pin bones have been removed, run a finger down the center line of each fillet, you will feel pin bones sticking up. Remove with needle nose pliers or just make an angled cut the length of the fillet, without going through the skin, on each side of the row of bones, then simply remove the strip of bones. Pat the fillets dry with paper towels. To make it easier to handle the fillets, cut each fillet in half crosswise, giving you 4 pieces, if desired.
- Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, I used ghee, in a non stick pan. When the oil is hot, season the flesh side of the fillets with salt as desired. Place the fillets in the pan skin side down, if the fillets are curling upwards, just use your fingers and hold them down flat for a few seconds to make sure the skin maintains contact with the pan (this ensures nice and tasty skin). Cook for 1-2 minutes depending on the thickness.
- Once the skin is crispy and golden brown, turn the fillets over and remove the pan from heat, let cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute.
- Serve skin side up immediately. Enjoy with sides of your choice.
Notes
I have frozen mackerel fillets in the freezer, don't know what I paid for them, not too much, but I will verify this when I go to Tesco in town again. For now I will say Low cost per serving.
Thai Fish Curry
I seen my wife make this today using imported Italian Mackerel, and local sourced ingredients. Seems like a lot of steps but this actually goes together quite fast overall. The coconut milk is made from fresh grated coconut, use canned if you like. Measurements are very approximate as no actual measurements are made, what is listed is my best guesses.
Ingredients
- 500 grams shredded coconut, fresh, not bagged
- 6 whole Italian Mackerel, gutted, tails removed, 6-8 inches each
- 2 handfuls lime leaves, finely sliced
- 2-3 tablespoons chili paste
- 2-3 tablespoons shrimp paste
- 2-3 tablespoons fresh tamarind
- cooked rice, for serving
Instructions
- With the fresh shredded coconut, you are going to make coconut milk. to do this, place the coconut in a large bowl and cover with water. Squeeze the shred and the water will become milky. Do this for about 5-10 minutes, really squeezing the clumps of shred, then grab some shred and hold it above the bowl and squeeze it dry, discard the clump, now you have a bowl of coconut milk, almost, you are not done yet.
- Place a strainer over a bowl and pour the milk into the strainer, tap the strainer and move the contents a bit with your fingers to get the liquid out, you are now removing any of the remaining shred from the milk. For the remaining shred, pick that up and squeeze dry as well.
- The end result is fresh coconut milk, this is just one bowl, we used two, goal is 3-4 cups of milk total.
- Now get your ingredients together. Here is one of the two bowls of coconut milk, chili paste, shrimp paste, and the lime leaves (before slicing).
- Fish used is Italian Mackerel. We bought these are Tesco, sold by the piece, not weight, 90 Baht for 6 fish.
- Clean the fish by scaling, the scales are very small and this goes quickly, then gut each and cut the tails off. (If you want to remove the heads, feel free to do so.)
- Add about ⅔ of the coconut milk to a pan, and add the chili paste and shrimp paste. Put on medium heat.
- While the milk is heating up, slice up the lime leaves. Grab the handful or so of leaves, the younger bright green ones are preferred, hold in a tight bundle, and slice. Not looking for perfection here, just get most of them thinly sliced. Set this aside.
- With the milk now hot, stir to mix in the chili and shrimp pastes. Let this simmer, low boil, for about 10 minutes. You just made a curry.
- Then add the fish in a single layer.
- Now pour in the remaining coconut milk and sort of mix that in, let this simmer for about 10 minutes.
- This is fresh tamarind, it is like a paste, the stones (seeds), and the string fibrous part is still in this. To this, add a little water, about 1/4 cup and squish this up to soften it.
- Remove the fish to another pan.
- To the pan with the curry, hold a strainer over the pan and pour in the tamarind mush into the strainer, move the mush about with your hand to get the tamarind liquid into the pan, when the all the liquid is strained out from the tamarind mush, discard the strainer contents. Stir the tamarind liquid into the curry then add the sliced lime leaves and stir that in.
- Pour the curry over the fish in the second pan, add a few whole lime leaves, bring this to a simmer for 2-3 minutes.
- Place a few fish in a bowl, spoon some curry over the top and ready to serve.
Notes
The fish cost 90 Baht for 6 fish. For 4 servings, this is about 68 cents per serving.
Sardines in Olive Oil (Slow Cooker)
Sardines are any type of small oily fish like sardines, mackerel, herring, or even milkfish, that have been preserved in oil or packed in sauce. I like sardines, I love sardines in olive oil, but I could only find one store that carried them in olive oil (Thai made as well) and was pricey to say the least. So I set out on an internet search and found this recipe, I have made it twice with excellent results.
Ingredients
- brine, ¼ cup salt in each 2 cups of water
- 3-4 mackeral, cleaned with heads and tail removed
- ¾ cup olive oil
- ¾ cup water
- ¾ cup pickle juice
- 3 bay leaves
- 2 tablespoons black peppercorns
Instructions
- Clean your fish, for both times I made these I used 4 mackerel, remove the head, tail, insides, and clean well on the inside along the backbone. Leave skin on and bones in.
- I took each fish and cut into 3 pieces, place all in a bowl with a lid.
- Prepare your brine with ¼ cup salt for 2 cups of water. I do this separate so I don't make more brine than what is needed. Make a batch and pour over the fish pieces, make more as needed to cover the fish.
- Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, I normally refrigerate overnight.
- Remove the fish from the brine and rinse, place fish pieces in a slow cooker, add the olive oil, water, pickle juice, bay leaves, and peppercorns.
- Put the slow cooker on Low setting for 3-6 hours, depending on size of fish, 3 hours for small fish, like milkfish, and 6 hours for mackerel. Check the fish about an hour before the time, you are looking for soft fish and soft bones, if the bones are not soft, go another hour and check again, repeat until the bones are soft.
- When done and the fish and bones are soft, allow to cool and store in the fridge in olive oil.
- Serve as is with or on a lettuce salad with tomatoes and garlic, or as a sandwich with bread spread with mustard.
Notes
Mackerel will run about 25 baht per fish, if using as a light meal, well under $1 per person. If I use in a sandwich, I use 3 fish pieces, split each in half, lunch for under $1. If I use in a tomato salad, I use 3 pieces and just kind of chop them up, salad for under $1.
Used in Recipes Listed on this Site:
- Sardine & Tomato Sandwich.
- Sardine & Sliced Egg Sandwich, made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Pasta with Sardines II.
- Sardine & Cheese Wontons.
- Tempura Sardines.
- Ginger Steamed Sardines.
- Sardine Salad Sandwich, made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Sardine Dip, made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Crispy Sardines & Garlic Mayo, made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Fisherman's Eggs, made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Pasta with Sardines.
- Sardine Sandwich I, made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Sardine Sandwich II, made it.
- Sardine Club Sandwich.
