In short. An old Bari method: mackerel fillets boiled briefly in a cloth, then left an hour in vinegar and dressed with oil, mint and garlic. It makes an oily fish light and keeps it for days.
The old instruction for how long to boil them is the best cooking time ever written down: just long enough to say a Pater Noster.
Ingredients
- 1 kg of mackerel
- vinegar
- extra virgin olive oil
- mint and garlic, minced
- salt
Method
1. Boiling. Fillet the mackerel, wrap the fillets in a cloth and put them in a pot with salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes only.
2. The vinegar. Lift them out, drain, and put them in a bowl covered with vinegar. Leave for an hour, then unwrap them from the cloth.
3. Dressing. Arrange on a plate and dress with extra virgin olive oil and the minced mint and garlic.
Why the cloth. Mackerel fillets fall apart in boiling water. Wrapped, they hold together and can be lifted out whole — a piece of kitchen engineering from before anyone owned a steamer basket.
Keeping them. Prepared this way the mackerel can be kept under a glass cover — which is exactly why the recipe exists: it was how an oily fish was made to last in a hot climate.
More on the second courses page.
