Name: Smoked Mackerel Pate Recipe
Prep time: 3 min
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 200g smoked mackerel fillets; 1 tbsp Hellman's Real Mayonnaise; 1 tbsp lemon juice; 8g capers, drained; 1 tsp creamed horseradish; 15 ml cream; Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

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Smoked Mackerel Pâté

I am not a great fish eater, but one of the fish I do love is the Atlantic mackerel. This easy smoked mackerel pate recipe will show you how to make a very simple yet scrumptious snack, perfect as a canapé at a dinner party or as a starter.

The Wonderful Atlantic Mackerel

There are a number of reasons why I like mackerel. Many reasons stem from the days I used to go fishing with my Dad off the South Coast of Cornwall in the West of England.

We would get up early and go down to the Logan Rock or Minack Rock and throw our lines out.

Ready to blitz

Back in those days, mackerel was wonderfully abundant and you could see them shoaling past the rocks in their hundreds of thousands. But even when they shoaled like that they were still difficult to catch. But when you did catch them, what a fight they would put up.

Serve with crackers or toasted sourdough

Mackerel is a good fighting fish and will put up a fight until even after you have landed them. Pound for pound it must be one of the strongest fish I have caught in the past.

We used to bring the mackerel back to our B&B owner, Sir Darrell and Lady Bates, who would serve them up for our breakfast – simply rolled in flour, salt and pepper and fried in butter. Delicious!

Smoking mackerel

Darrell Bates, apart from being a well-known writer, also had other tricks. He was an expert at smoking his own mackerel.

He had a marvellous way of achieving this by hanging the fish in an old wooden cupboard in the garden, and lighting a small smouldering fire beneath some wood chips in the bottom.

Smoked mackerel pate

It was an ingenious invention and I remember sampling the product and being incredibly impressed.

Mackerel Pâté

This easy recipe is a super-easy way to enjoy already smoked mackerel. I made this simple treat using smoked mackerel from Aldi.

I used my Nutribullet to blitz all the ingredients together. This is not as simple as you may think, but it does work if you persevere and keep moving the bits around. Alternatively, just use a normal food processor to do the blitzing.

This is a very rich canapé topping and a much cheaper alternative to using caviar!

Serve it up as a canapé or a starter, but beware it is very filling! Enjoy!

How to make smoked mackerel pate