Tag: mackerel

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Onions, winter seeds & mackerel pate

As long as I do things slowly with a rest and feet up between each activity, it’s surprising how much I can get through in a day whilst recuperating.

Husband went fishing yesterday afternoon at high tide, and came back with several beautiful fat mackerel.

We grilled them for supper last night on the fire pit. There’s nothing more delicious than fresh mackerel, succulent, crispy and smoky from the coals. It’s so good to feel that this is free bounty from the sea! We ate them with fresh lettuce, cucumbers and potatoes from the polycrub.

We cooked them all whilst spankingly fresh, knowing that there were more than we could eat so that the leftover ones could be turned into mackerel pate this morning. That will be my first job after we’ve cleared away the breakfast things.

Whilst bimbling around in the vegetable patch yesterday, bemoaning the state of the weeds and the rushes – knowing that I mustn’t try and sort it out else my poor, tortured stomach muscles would give up the ghost completely – I noticed that the onions were about ready to harvest, and that some of them were sending up flower shoots.

An onion with a flower shoot

The perceived wisdom from Google is that when onions do this they should be harvested immediately. It also advises that onions that have done this should be used first as they don’t store well.

I think a few minutes of harvesting onions later today is on the cards. They come out of the soil easily being grown so so close to the surface, so it’s really no effort. Honestly.

The final job that I want to achieve this weekend is to sow some winter seeds. Once the onions have been lifted, followed very soon by the potatoes, there will be some raised bed space made free, and I’m keen to keep vegetable production going.

I’m going to try some Asian greens and winter radish alongside the winter lettuce and kale. Let’s see what we can achieve. I love that growing is a constant cycle of experimenting and learning.

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A profusion of mackerel

Friends from the village gave us a bag of freshly caught mackerel from Armadale Bay yesterday.

They arrived, shining, still smelling of the sea. I always think they’re such lovely looking fish.

Husband heroically gutted them all in the tiny caravan kitchen sink and we decided to cook them over the barbecue whilst they were at their best.

Mackerel

There is nothing quite like freshly chargrilled mackerel. They were moist, sweet and slightly smoky from the fire, their skins blackened and crispy. We ate them whilst the sun went down with good bread, dill-pickled cucumber and some fresh salad.

There was enough left over to make mackerel pate this morning. The meat was flaked off into a bowl with cream cheese, lemon juice and zest, a lime, sea salt and cracked black pepper.

Mackerel pate

A pot has gone into the fridge to eat later with sourdough toast, and a bowl has been wrapped as a thankyou gift for the neighbours who brought us the fish.

Later on toasted sourdough

I was just musing that the last time we ate mackerel pate was an expensive pot bought from a London deli. And here we are a year on, eating the same, but probably fresher and more flavoursome than anything bought from a shop.

Eaten with thanks as part of our new life here in Scotland.