Kitchen RO

Pan mackerel with onion, courgette and vinegar

The same omega-3 as salmon at an eighth of the price. Fifteen minutes, two tins.

20 min total 15 min hands-on 7.50 in totalhobfishcheapomega-3quick
Portions
Quantities and the shopping list are recalculated
2

One portion

1,201
kcal
28
protein g
113
fat g
16
carbs g
Sodium613 mg / 667
Potassium1,142 mg / 1,567
Phosphorus412 mg / 400
Fibre7 g / 7

Against one meal out of three, at your daily targets. For fibre a full bar is the good thing; for the rest it's the opposite.

Ingredients

Fish
  • 280 g Tinned mackerel
Vegetables
  • 250 g Onions
  • 300 g Courgette
  • 300 g Cabbage
  • 10 g Parsley
Fat and seasoning
  • 175 g Butter
  • 20 ml Olive oil
  • 25 g Lard
  • 25 ml Vinegar
  • 4 g Smoked paprika
  • 1 g Black pepper
  • 1 g Salt · sodium

How it's made

6 steps

Big screen, one step at a time, with timers. The screen stays awake.

  1. Slice the onion thinly, cut the courgette into rounds a centimetre thick and shred the cabbage.
    5 min
  2. Big pan on medium heat with the lard, then the onion, 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. It needs to go golden and soft, not merely translucent.
    8 min
    Onion cooked to golden is sweet. Onion merely softened is watery. Those eight minutes are all that separates this recipe from a mediocre one.
  3. Turn the heat up, add the courgette and cabbage with 40 g of butter. Five minutes, stirring occasionally — you want browned edges, not boiled vegetables.
    5 min
  4. Take the pan off the heat, add the smoked paprika and vinegar. It hisses and half evaporates in a few seconds.
  5. Drain the oil from the tins, add the fish to the pan in large pieces. Stir gently twice — mackerel falls apart if you keep at it.
    2 min
  6. Heat off. The rest of the butter, the olive oil, pepper, salt and parsley. One stir and it's done.

The recipe that keeps the budget in check. Two tins of mackerel cost a fifth of what a piece of salmon does and bring more omega-3 per euro than anything else in the shop.

Tinned mackerel isn’t a compromise. The fish is canned within hours of being caught, so its fats are fresher than those of a fillet that has sat on a shelf for three days. The one real drawback is sodium: 350 mg per hundred grams. That’s why the recipe carries only a gram of salt across two portions.

Courgette and cabbage, in the pan that’s already going. Both brown quickly over high heat and soak up the butter. They’re there for bulk: together they bring under 120 calories, while the other two thousand come from butter, lard and the oil in the tins.

Vinegar off the heat. The acidity cuts through the fat of the fish and makes it taste lighter. Added over high heat it evaporates completely and nothing is left of it.

Photo: Soy glazed mackerel by adactio, licence BY 2.0.