Baked mackerel stuffed with preserved lemon

Mackerel is one of my favourite fish. The fact that it's both cheap and nutritionally sound is a bonus on top of its creamy, fleshy texture and delicate yet pronounced flavour. I regularly buy smoked fillets to toss into a salad, but fresh mackerel can't be beat, in my book, and it's amazingly versatile as it will stand up to being matched with all manner of robust flavours.

Ideally, I'd grill mackerel or barbecue it to do it justice but in my small, balcony-less flat neither of these are an option, so I settle for baking instead. This takes less than 10 minutes to prepare and only 20 minutes to cook, and you can grill it if you prefer.

What you need:
1 fresh mackerel, cleaned
A generous handful of fresh flatleaf parsley
Olive oil
A small clove of garlic
Black pepper
1 medium or 2 small preserved lemons

What to do:
Heat the oven to 220C. Chop the parsley very finely and crush the garlic into a pulp. Finely chop a small preserved lemon and combine all three in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil. Season with the pepper.

Rinse the fish under the cold tap, making sure the cavity is clean. Pat dry with kitchen paper. Make three slashes on each side of the fish, right through to the bone. Put on a baking tray and stuff the cavity with the parsley and lemon mixture. Slice the other preserved lemon and arrange on top of the fish. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes.

Eat with a green salad and boiled new potatoes.

Cook's tips:
The fishmonger should have already descaled the fish but ask him to gut it too. I usually ask them to take the head off as well. At home, I remove any stray fins or gills with a sharp pair of scissors.

Mackerel is quite bony, so if you don't like dealing with the bones ask the fishmonger to fillet the fish and sandwich the two halves together with the stuffing.

I usually mash up the stuffing in a pestle and mortar once I've done the initial chopping.

Warm mackerel and beetroot salad

I love fish, almost all kinds, and I aim to eat it twice a week. Oily fish especially is a very healthy food as it contains important omega oils that are good for the heart. I'm lucky enough to have a fishmonger on my doorstep where I can get super-fresh fish off the boats that morning. The bigger supermarkets have a fish counter but I must admit I'm sometimes a little wary how fresh the fish is.

Smoked fish is a good option if you can't get fresh. As with all fish, you may need to pick out some bones but smoked mackerel has very few. It can be a bit smelly so wrap it well when you store it in the fridge. This recipe is very quick to make, filling and very good for you.

What you need: 
2 small fillets of smoked mackerel
4-5 small potatoes
1 medium cooked beetroot, peeled
9-10 capers
A generous handful of flat-leaf parsley
Oil, white wine vinegar and grain mustard

What to do:
Boil the potatoes in their skins until just tender. While they are cooking, skin the mackerel and break the flesh into large flakes. Cut the beetroot into quarters and then each quarter into 2-3 pieces. Rinse the capers to rid them of their brine and drain them. Roughly chop the parsley.

Whisk up a dressing of olive oil, white wine vinegar and half a teaspoon of grain mustard, then season it with a little freshly ground black pepper. Drain the potatoes when ready, then halve or quarter them into bite-sized pieces. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and pour over the dressing so the potatoes can absorb it while they are still hot. Stir through to mix everything.

Cook's tips:
It's easier to skin the mackerel by hand. Take it out of the fridge at least half an hour before you start cooking - the skin slides off easier at room temperature. I also break it into pieces by hand.

I like to roast my beetroot as it brings out its sweetness but it can take 1.5 to 2 hours (scrub, wrap in foil and bake at 180C, then skin when cool) so I often roast 3-4 or in one batch, keeping most in the fridge after cooking until I'm ready to use them. If you buy precooked beetroot, make sure you don't get the ones preserved in vinegar as they are too sour for this. Most supermarkets sell cooked beets that are preserved only by their vacuum-packing.

If you don't like capers, use sliced gherkins. Either way, rinse before use to get rid of the vinegar.

For the dressing I like to use 2/3 olive oil and 1/3 lemon-infused oil to add a sharp lemon tang. Mackerel is a very oily fish so I tend to use more vinegar in the dressing than I would usually - a proportion of 2/3 oil to 1/3 vinegar, rather than the usual ratio of 3/4 to 1/4. Don't add salt - there's plenty in the fish.