'Cookability'

For the past few weeks I've been attending the Cookability course, run by Brighton & Hove Food Partnership. It's designed to support food activists to deliver cooking courses of their own, out in the community.

It's been great fun, with some really interesting people. We've been working together week-after-week to build up our group-working skills, develop knowledge around healthy eating & nutrition, and practice our food-prep by cooking lunch together.

This week was 'fish week', and I took the chance to demonstrate a recipe in front of the group - Smoked Mackerel Pate. It's a great recipe: a really simple prep, it's cheap, it keeps well, and of course the mackerel is a good source of protein and omega fatty acids (as well as being a relatively sustainable fish).

The finished dish tastes like a posh, richer version of tuna mayo. Which can't be a bad thing! :)

Half a packet (150g) cream cheese - can use quark or other low-fat version
Packet (250g) of smoked mackerel
A generous spoonful of yogurt, sour cream or creme fraiche
Lemon, pepper, chopped herbs etc. for flavouring

Remove the mackerel flesh from the skin, and remove any major bones. Blend the cream cheese and yogurt (etc.) into the flesh, and season with the lemon, pepper etc.

That's it! Can be kept in the fridge for several days, and you can flavour batches with additions like sweetcorn, sweet chilli, wasabi, and so on.

A photo of the group cooking lunch together...

...and the finished article, including a Palestinian-style stuffed trout:

Delicious! :)