During our recent trip to Lyme Regis, we found loads of great places to buy local produce and enjoy a nice bite to eat (more info in my previous Lyme Regis Post). However, I don’t think anything compares to fresh food which you’ve grown, caught or harvested for yourself. I particularly love oily fish on the BBQ – Mackerel and Sardines – both of which bring back memories of holidays past in Cornwall and Portugal respectively. Mackerel is one of my favourite fish, and in my opinion is never better than when you catch it and barbecue it straight away. Formerly a regular angler, I gave up fishing when I took up SCUBA diving, having viewed the world from the fish’s point of view. I now only rarely fish and only then when I intend to eat the catch.
The very reasonably price Mackerel fishing trips on Lyme (£8) were too good an opportunity to turn down! In Lyme, different numbers of boats operate each day, depending on season, day and weather. Blackboards and signs at the entrance to the Cobb (harbour wall) give information about various fishing trips, including Bassing trips, all day fishing trips and the ever popular Mackerel/sight seeing trips. We wandered down to the end of the Cobb one sunny day to await the next boat trip. The Frances Jane is a delightful little boat, operated by Doug and Amanda (both of whom are also diving instructors). The boat is a converted Crabber from Cornwall, built in 1952 with a mahogany hull and was easily the prettiest boat in the harbour.
We chugged out into the bay, with beautiful views on show in the calm sunshine. Using slithers of Mackerel as bait Amanda handed out the lines (long lines on a hand spool, with a large weight to take the line down and a bright coloured bead marking the leader line with the baited hook on the end). Once the spool is tied onto the railings (to avoid mishaps) its a case of waiting till you feel the tug on the line before winding in the line and checking if there’s a shiny silver green/blue/black mackerel on the end. Our haul wasn’t huge, apparently due to the hot weather and increasingly choppy seas. The views were fantastic and the time was up before we knew it. We’d both caught “one for the pot” and headed back to shore.
We popped into The Old Watch House fish monger at the start of the Cobb and bought a couple of Herring to supplement the Mackerel and pick up some ice packs to keep the fish cool while we walked back to the campsite. I love the marbled silver green/blue/black pattern Mackerel have and the non slymey, not scaley feel of the fish (like you have with Trout for instance). We gutted/cleaned the fish and opened the vino!
I got the BBQ going and we polished off a dressed crab which we bought in The Old Watch House. In the evening sunshine, the fish looked great. The Old Watch House didn’t have any Sardines, but instead I bought Herring (essentially just large sardines). Herring is more sustainable than Sardines, although I’m not sure if this is purely because Sardines are so much more popular.
We were a little low on provisions, so it was just the fish, with some black pepper corns crushed between 2 bricks. We gave them about 3 minutes on either side, before serving up with crusty bread and salad. We cooked the Herring in exactly the same way. The fish skin went beautifully crisp on the barbecue and the smells during cooking were great.
Although the bones came out of the fresh fish very easily, lots of people are put of Mackerel because of the many small bones. My tip is to always eat fresh crusty bread with small fish – so you don’t notice any little bones remaining. All in all, the fish made a great dinner. It left us wondering why we don’t eat fish more often?
The only downside of eating Mackerel and living in London is that inevitably you will be reminded of the tube game “Mackerel” which goes along the line of “there’s only one underground station on the whole of the network which doesn’t contain any of the letters of the word Mackerel – which one?” and then every time you see a tube map while waiting for a train, you’ll be staring and staring and cursing Dr Kate for ever telling you about the game in the first place. Even worse, you’ll spend hours studying the map, feel let down when you realise the answer and then 2 years later, go fishing for Mackerel in Dorset and remember that you’ve forgotten which underground station it was and have to do it all again! For the answer and many other random London Underground facts, click here.
