Monday Miso Mackerel

Photo © Rob Jones

Cast your mind back to the 1960s and 70s'.

Little Robert is tasked with mincing the leftover meat from Sunday lunch. It was usually beef or lamb, and I would derive enormous pleasure in feeding in the chopped-up leftover bits, and seeing the results dribble out the other end. Sometimes gristle was a tough gig. Sunday lunch was either chicken, beef, ham or lamb. Two veg, one of which was invariably roast potatoes and drenched in gravy made from the juices of the meat. The mince was mashed together with the leftover potatoes and dipped in egg and bright orange breadcrumbs which came from a box, to be fried and live again as rissoles.

Saturday had probably been beefburgers, beans and chips, and maybe more beans on toast for tea. Friday was fish fingers. My Mum added some tartare sauce which I hadn’t gained a liking for at that time. Pizzas, quiches, Italian, Indian and Chinese food were still to appear in the larder. Spanish food was a distant dream

The sands of time shift again to 2021.

Big Robert is in charge of cooking. Friday lunch was peppered mackerel and salad, and in the evening it was home made beef, onion and rosemary burgers, served with salad. Saturday was crumpets and marmite for breakfast and, in the evening, pasties which arrived as an emergency parcel from Cornwall. Breakfast was strawberries. Sunday evening dinner was poached salmon with butternut squash, peas, mash and parsley sauce.

Which goes to show that … not only have tastes radically changed, but you have to do a lot more brain work to think what to do with leftovers, as that is one certainty in this world, there will always be leftovers.

So I….

Flaked the remaining piece of peppered mackerel. Added a chopped onion and some remaining peas. Finely chopped a toasted crumpet, grated cheese. Added some fish sauce and an egg, some pepper. Fried like a hash and turfed into a big bowl.

Made an instant dark Miso Soup and poured it around the hash.

Comforting in a self satisfying sort of way.

RJ