Smoked Mackerel Salad

After having curry and cake with Mum at the weekend it was back to the healthy eating in the week. Well, kind of - I did go have a hot dog from the shop next to the Market Porter before the Norwich V Chelsea game on Tuesday. And then there was dinner (and lots of wine) at Mildred's on Wednesday. Oh, and not forgetting the curries I had on Friday (Bawarchi) and Saturday (Sagar). Although at least Friday's curry was just some grilled chicken made with coriander, lemon leaves and all sorts of spices. Saturdays vegetarian curry was quite light too. Anyway, enough justification - here's the salad



Smoked Mackerel Salad (Serves 2)

2 smoked mackerel fillets, skinned and cut into bite-sized pieces
2 handfuls of mini plum tomatoes
4 spring onions,sliced
250g mixed salad leaves (I had mustard leaves, red chard and mizuna)
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
salt and pepper

1) Not much to this. Half the tomatoes, slice the spring onions and skin and cut the mackerel into bite-sized pieces. Put in a bowl with the salad leaves.
2) Next make the dressing. Put the olive oil, mustard and vinegar in a jug, blend thoroughly with a fork and season with salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the salad and divide into two bowls.

This is all about the quality of the mackerel and salad leaves. Buy some horrible peppered mackerel and some iceberg lettuce and this will be pretty boring. However with naturally smoke mackerel and some interesting, peppery salad leaves and this will be great. Then it's just about matching the flavours. I had mustard leaves, tomatoes and wholegrain mustard because they go very well with the oily mackerel and can stand up to the smokiness.