Holy Mackerel
Smoked fish is one of Scotland's great treasures - and it's one of the few things that you can't get easily if you travel abroad.
Now the countries around the Mediterranean Sea have a wonderful cuisine.
But they don't do kippers, smoked haddock or smoked mackerel - which are some of my favourite dishes in the whole world.
So as I'm going to have a Smoked Mackerel Salad for my lunch - I thought I'd share the 'recipe' which requires no cooking - just good ingredients and some imaginative assembly.
Smoked Mackerel Salad
Ingredients
1 good sized smoked mackerel
1 small red onion
1 half of a cucumber
12 ripe cherry or other nice tomatoes
1 handful of coriander or parsley
2 or 3 tablespoons of good olive oil
1 or 2 tablespoons of good vinegar - balsamic or rice vinegar are both good
1 or 2 chillis - as hot as you like
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Skin the mackerel and cut into nice bite sized pieces
Chop the tomatoes, onion, cucumber, chillis and herbs
Add all the chopped ingredients to the mackerel - along with the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
Leave standing for 10 minutes so all the flavours can mix and mingle really well
I like mine with a strong vinegar taste - which goes really well with the oily, smoky fish.
And since oily fish are supposed to be good for you - good for the brain - I'm going to send a copy of the recipe to Scotland's Lib Dem leader - Willie Rennie.
See previous post - 'Ask a Stupid Question'.