French Mackerel Fish in Sweet and Savoury Cranberry sauce

This is an old recipe from one of my handwritten recipe books. I am not sure of the origin - it could be from a 'Weekend' or 'Friday' magazine or from my cousin's recipe collection. I learnt a lot of international cuisines growing up in 'Cosmopolitan' Dubai. Back then I had many a opportunity to learn a lot of new recipes and most of it was first tried and tested (almost always right) by Mum.

French Mackerel served up

This is a very savory fish recipe and the thyme lends such an excellent flavour and fragrance as well. It is best made with fillet of mackerel (as otherwise mackerel has a lot of bones and it could be a pain to eat with this savory base). I tried this out with the bone-on this time and also this is best had as a full fish rather than cut however this time I had my fish clean and cut at the seller's place itself before I decided to make this one.Also I used the Indian Mackerel variety as I did not have a choice! Cranberries and Red currants are not readily available here. I tried even in the import shops but in vain. I had a choice to use Red Grapes but it is not in season now, so I chose the packaged cranberry juice version.

Indian Mackerel

You need:

Diced white onions, thyme sprigs

• 2 medium sized mackerel  in full or mackerel fillets
• 4-6 cloves of garlic
• 1 medium sized white onion diced
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter (or if you are using the salted butter, then take care whilst adding salt separately)
• 1 sprig thyme
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 tbsp ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup of dry white wine or white wine vinegar (I used homemade white wine - recipe to follow:) )
• 1 cup of cranberry (freshly juiced or packaged. In case of packaged sweet version, do not add sugar as below). (Other options: You can also use red currant or red grape)



White wine(L), Cranberry juice(R)

• 1/2 tbsp of powdered or castor sugar

Thyme Sprigs

The make:

Cooking Time:20 minutes| Preparation Time: 20 minutes| Serves 2 adults

Onion and garlic in butter



• Clean the fish and/or fillet as required.
• Place the fish on a baking tray or pan ( I used my iron skillet - taking care to use oven mitts as the handle will heat in the oven)
• Take the juice of the cranberries and strain or packaged version and set aside.
• Crush the garlic and dice finely. Next, add the diced onions and garlic to the butter in a heated skillet until translucent (Do not brown). Do this on a low flame and allow to blend for about 5-10 minutes only.



Mackerels before going into the oven

• Next add the juice, sugar(only if the juice is freshly juiced and not for sweetened packaged version), wine/wine vinegar, salt(only if butter is unsalted) and pepper to the skillet. Allow it to warm not boil. Turn off the flame.

• Pour the liquid over the prepared mackerel in the baking tray/pan and top with the fresh thyme sprig. 
• Place it in a hot oven (heated on high flame). Lower the heat to medium and allow to cook for about 10-15 minutes maximum. (In case your oven, does not have a heating device on top, then 5-7 minutes into the cooking process, flip the mackerel over. In case you have additional cranberries/red grape/red currants left, then chop them up and place over the fish and allow to blend with the fish in the oven.

Mackerel in the pan done with thyme sprigs

• Serve hot with Frenched French beans.

Mackerel in Cranberry sauce

Bon Appetit! My Indian Fish loving HD...loved this one so much that I reserved some of the remaining sauce for another appetising meal :) Do let me know how you like this one!