Game Cookery

Freshly caught home-smoked mackerel with sweet and sour pickles delivers a wild summer taste to savour, says keen angler Cai ap Bryn

It won’t be long before we are back in the warmer months. Lockdown this time round has been harder and, though many of us have been able to return to the day job, there are a lot of us in the catering industry who have had little or no work.

However, there is light on the horizon and we are hoping we will soon be back in action. In the meantime, I still have plenty of time to head out hunting and shooting.

When I am not out shooting, one of my favourite things to do is fishing. I tend to do more fly-fishing in the early summer and as soon as it gets hotter, I head out to the sea on my kayak and try for bass and mackerel. I do love both of those, they are great sport on the lures or feathers.

However, over recent years, I have noticed the mackerel are taking longer to come to shore. Last year, it was late August to September when they appeared and they were still around in October. The bass, on the other hand, arrived in spring and stayed active throughout the whole of summer and late autumn.

That’s the beauty of living close to the sea here in East Sussex — you get the variety of sea fishing and shooting, and you are able to keep busy the whole year round between seasons. I know this is a shooting magazine, but wild food is wild food and you don’t get much wilder than a summer mackerel straight off the hook.

Mackerel is an oily fish and its quality can deteriorate pretty quickly. I like to eat them on the day or put them straight on ice to be consumed over the following couple of days.

One of my favourite things to do with fresh mackerel is to hot-smoke them. They tend to work very well when hot-smoked with a fresh salad or simply in a bread sandwich with vinegar.

Smorgasbord

Smoked fish and pickles are extremely tasty and have been around for centuries. The sweet and sour of the pickles really goes well with smoked meats and fish.

They complement each other. You only have to look at the Scandinavians with their smorgasbord. They are the masters of smoking fish and making their own pickles.

So let’s look at this simple recipe. This may seem tricky to do at home if you don’t have the right equipment, but we can adapt and make a smoker with materials at home. To make a quick-fix smoker, follow the instructions (right).

MAKING A SMOKER

1 Obtain a deep wok with a lid. Lay a small palm-sized foil tray in the bottom of the wok and place a tablespoon of oak sawdust and a tablespoon of rice mixed together on it.

2 Put a metal rack in the wok. This could be a microwave grill or something similar, on which to rest the fish.

3 With the lid on, put the hob heat to low/medium and let the rice toast while the dust generates smoke. Make sure the kitchen extractor fan is on or the windows are open.

3 At this point, you are ready to add the prepared fish (see method).

If using a fish or barbecue smoker, then smoke for the same amount of time without the rice. I like oak for smoking mackerel as it goes well with the fish and gives a nice flavour.