Grilled mackerel with pea mashed potato

The second meal I cooked for myself and my husband in our new home in Cologne (the first was an Indian meal of dal, rice and spiced vegetables which unfortunately I forgot to photograph for this blog). Our oven still hasn't been installed yet, so every meal has to be cooked on the hob until then. I'm not complaining, though, because the inconvenience of not having an oven is (for the moment at least) far outweighed by the luxury of having a proper gas hob after putting up with a shitty electric one for three years. We are doubly lucky because gas hobs are extremely rare in Germany - so much so that there is no mains gas supply and we have to get ours from a canister that needs replacing every couple of months. (Electric hobs being so vastly inferior to gas, this suggests a conclusion I don't want to draw about German attitudes towards food and cooking. What on earth do they do in restaurant kitchens, I wonder?)

I consulted Hugh (that's Fearnley-Whittingstall, needless to say) on how best to achieve a crispy skin and nicely cooked flesh. Unfortunately by the time I consulted him I'd already slapped the fish on the griddle, so all I discovered was that I'd done just about everything wrong! (I used olive oil, which is too volatile to be used at such a high temperature, and I oiled the pan when I should have oiled the fish. Oh well - I know better for next time.) But I did make use of a nice little tip from Jamie Oliver, which is to season the fish well 15 minutes before cooking and leave it out. That way, the salt draws water away from the skin and stops the skin from sticking to the pan. It worked for me - the skin was lovely and crispy.

At least I got the temperature and timing just about right (medium-high flame, 5 minutes on each side), and the end result was completely delicious despite my errors. For a sauce I simply fried some sliced garlic for a minute or two in the still-hot oil after I'd taken the fish out, then mixed both garlic and oil with some lemon juice and torn basil leaves and poured the lot over the fish. With mashed potato and peas as an accompaniment, this was a memorably good dinner.