Fried mackerel with cream and mustard sauce

I’ve been having a fishy week. I watched some Japanese chefs preparing sashimi from live fish on youtube yesterday. Gruesome, I suppose, but then they are just fish. Must be really crap being a fish, swimming around and then getting killed and eaten (or the other way round in this case). Anyway, the chef popped the filleted fish back in the tank where it happily (or not) carried on swimming about.

So I bought some mackerel, and filleted them (pretending they were asleep), and put them in a goldfish bowl of water, where they duly sank lifelessly to the bottom. Oh well.

Anyway. Mackerel’s my favourite, and as well as being delicious baked or grilled whole with little or no seasoning, it has a richness that stands up to heavy seasoning. This little appetiser illustrates this – it should serve 3-4.

For the sauce:
150ml double cream
1 dessert spoon strong English mustard
Half tsp salt
1 clove garlic, crushed

For the fish:
3 mackerel, filleted, skin on
Salt
Pepper
Oil to fry

First make the sauce. Easy - mix together all the ingredients. You might like to whip the cream a little first to thicken it.

Now for the fish. Generously season the flesh side with salt and pepper. Heat a little oil in a frying pan, and place the fillets in skin side down. Fry hard. They ought to cook through without turning, and when they're done, turn them briefly to brown the flesh a little.

When the fish is almost done, warm the sauce very gently to about body temperature.

Serve simply – fish on the plate with the sauce decoratively poured over it. You might even like to posh it up with some parsley to garnish.