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Recipe: hot smoked mackerel salad with cornflower petals

May 23, 2012 4 Comments Filed Under: Food, Gardens, Recipes, Uncategorized

First smoke your mackerel. Only kidding! But smoking is easier than you think, especially hot smoking. Just buy a little kit or come to one of the Secret Garden Club’s smoking courses. (By the way, this Sunday we are running a Cherokee themed gardening workshop and dinner, ‘cooking the three sisters’, still some tickets left).
This recipe works equally well with smoked mackerel bought from your local fishmonger or supermarket. It’s a good starter for this weather and full of flavour, especially with the fresh horseradish vinaigrette. I keep a horseradish root in the freezer and just grate some with a microplane whenever I need it.
I love to use edible flowers including cornflowers. It adds just the right touch of originality and prettiness. Right now I’m using the perennial cornflower which grows wild in my garden, although from June you can use the annual cornflower. I’m cooking an edible flower banquet at the gorgeous Clifton Nurseries in Maida Vale on Midsummer night’s eve. Book here:
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/169867

Serves four.

100ml good olive oil
2 large heaped tablespoons of Dijon mustard
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Fresh horseradish, grated 

Salt
Black pepper

200g mixed lettuce leaves, washed and dried carefully
Cornflower petals
1 pack or 2 fillets of smoked mackerel, skinless, sliced thickly
More black pepper

Make your dressing:
Put the Dijon mustard into the olive oil and whisk.
Add the lemon juice, continue to whisk until it is emulsified.
Grate fresh horseradish straight into the dressing, as much or as little as you like.
Season with salt and black pepper.
Divide the mixed leaves between the plates.
Pluck the petals from the cornflowers and distribute artfully around the leaves.
Then place three or four thick slices of the smoked mackerel fillets on top of the salad, overlapping slightly.
Dot the horseradishy dressing over the salad.
Grind on more black pepper and rub a pinchful of Malden salt between your fingers on top of the salad for a little bit of texture.
Serve with cold white wine and sourdough bread. 

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Comments

  1. foodporn

    May 24, 2012 at 3:12 am

    hello,
    Your mackerel salad looks so fresh. 🙂
    I don’t mind eat this every day. LOL.
    Thank you for sharing. 🙂
    You can submit your hot smoked mackerel salad with cornflower petals pics on http://www.foodporn.net It is a food (and drink of course) photography site where members can submit all food (and drink of course (again) LOL ) pictures that make readers hungry.
    Well, you know it’s fun to make others hungry (and thirsty)! 😀

    Reply
  2. theundergroundrestaurant

    May 24, 2012 at 11:49 am

    Thanks food porn.
    Is yours a new site? Like Tastespotting?

    Reply
  3. foodporn

    May 25, 2012 at 4:05 am

    it's new, but there's already a lot of members there

    you can visit the website to take a preview 😀

    Reply

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    August 30, 2019 at 10:38 am

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
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