Baked Mackerel with Tomatoes and Herbs Recipe

Baked Mackerel with Tomatoes

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These days baked mackerel is cooked everywhere and in every way, though not so long ago mackerel was mostly just fried. When I was a kid, today’s abundance of fish and seafood was unheard of. Oases of fishy happiness were limited to the Ocean store and the counters of the “expensive” markets. Still, the everyday fish such as hake, herring, anchovy, mackerel, and sometimes cod were quite affordable. By the way, for some reason I do not remember fresh-frozen mackerel or herring being sold. Mackerel was usually cold- or hot-smoked, and herring was only spiced-cured. As I remember, good fatty herring was not on sale all that often, and people feasted on iwashi. Or rather, people feasted on vodka and chased it with iwashi, and did not think about stuffed mackerel at all.

I also remember my mother bringing my grandmother in the village several kilograms of frozen hake or cod, a big frozen block. It was thawed, the fish was cut into pieces and stewed in a clay pot in a Ukrainian wood-fired stove, with carrots, onion and tomato paste. It turned out as a kind of stew of fish and vegetables. It was tasty, even very tasty, but I did not like it much, because the pieces of fish became shapeless and fell apart at a touch. The main virtue of that dish was that it had almost no bones.

In this respect, fresh-frozen mackerel solves many problems today. It has almost no bones, it is easy to cook, and I really like its taste. Especially baked mackerel.

Mackerel, or Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus), is an ocean fish that sometimes grows to half a meter, with small scales that nobody ever bothers to scrape off. A blue, almost black back with a barely noticeable wavy pattern and silvery sides make mackerel easy to recognize. The fish is interesting because it has no swim bladder.

Stewing mackerel is a pleasure. The flesh is quite fatty and dense, and many even consider it “dry”. I will tell you this: you have to learn to cook mackerel. Or rather, just take it and cook it, for example with this recipe for mackerel in the oven or the way I make mackerel with cheese, or bake mackerel in foil or a very tasty dish, “mackerel on the grill”. I do not even know where you could go wrong and spoil the fish.

Ingredients

2 servings

For the mackerel

  • Mackerel 1
  • Onion 1
  • Tomato 3-4
  • Parsley, dill to taste
  • Vegetable or olive oil 3 tbsp
  • Water 3-4 tbsp
  • Salt, pepper, dried herbs to taste

For the oven version

  • Garlic 2-3 cloves

For serving (optional)

  • Potatoes or couscous as a side

Step-by-step recipe

How to prepare the mackerel

  1. Thaw the mackerel. It is best to move the fish from the freezer to the top shelf of the fridge. If you take the mackerel out of the freezer in the evening, it will be thawed by morning.

    Ingredients: mackerel, onion, tomato, garlic, mixed herbs, vegetable oil, spices, potatoes.

  1. Clean the fish. Rinse under cold running water and cut off the head right behind the gill covers. Slit the belly and remove the innards. Thoroughly clean the belly cavity of the black film under running water.

  2. Cut off the fillets and slice them. Here is how I do it: with scissors I snip the rib bones inside the belly of the mackerel, as close to the backbone as possible. I cut off the tail and, with a small knife, cut the fillet lengthwise, pressing the knife against the backbone. Almost no meat is left on the bones. Then I remove all the rib bones by hand, since they are easy to see and pull out, and trim off the remains of the dorsal fins. What is left is just the fillet on the skin.

    Cutting off the mackerel fillets.

    Cut the mackerel fillets crosswise into pieces 1.5-2 cm wide.

    Slicing the fillets.

How to cook in a pan

  1. Fry the onion. Peel the onion and cut it into thin strips. Fry in vegetable oil over medium heat until golden and move to a separate plate. The onion is optional, and without it the dish turns out just as good.

    Frying the onion.

  2. In the same oil, fry the mackerel fillet pieces very briefly, just a couple of minutes. Spread the pieces out in the pan and take the pan off the heat.

    Frying the fillets in the pan.

  1. Put the onion, herbs and tomatoes on the fish. Spread the fried onion over the fish in a single layer, gently level the surface, and add salt and pepper.

    Putting the onion on top of the fish.

    Sprinkle finely chopped fresh dill and parsley over the onion. If you have no fresh herbs, sprinkle with a dried mix of aromatic herbs.

    Sprinkling with spices and chopped herbs.

    Scald the tomatoes with boiling water, peel them and remove the seeds. Cut the flesh and place it on top of the herbs.

  2. Simmer covered. Pour 3-4 tbsp of water into the pan, cover with a lid and set over low heat. Simmer everything for about 15 mins from the moment the liquid starts to boil. If there is a lot of liquid after 15 mins, remove the lid and let it evaporate. The mackerel should be free of liquid and look like a bake.

How to bake mackerel with tomatoes in the oven

  1. Alternatively, bake it in the oven instead of the pan. Put the mackerel pieces in a baking dish, add tomato wedges, garlic and spices, drizzle with olive oil and bake in a preheated oven at 200-210 °C. Baked fish takes 20-25 mins.

Serving

  1. Serve with a side dish or on its own. Potatoes go very well with mackerel: boil large pieces of potato until soft, put them on a plate, and with a spatula place the mackerel with tomatoes on top.

    Garnishing with herbs.

    Garnish with a sprig of dill so the mackerel looks as good as it tastes.

    Baked mackerel

    Very tasty, even amazingly tasty: baked mackerel with couscous. Put the fish and tomatoes on the couscous, pour over the liquid that formed during cooking and sprinkle with herbs.

Calories and macros

480 kcal

Serving ≈ 320 g

  • Protein24 g20% of kcal
  • Fat37 g70% of kcal
  • Carbs11 g9% of kcal

100 g151 kcalProtein 7.5 gFat 11.6 gCarbs 3.5 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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