Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Mackerel along with all the Mackerel containing recipes presented on this site, with 50 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Mackerel recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Mackerel as a major wild food ingredient.



Mackerel is a collective term applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly, but not exclusively, from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment. Commercially, two species, Chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus) and Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) account for over 75% of all mackerel caught. In culinary terms, the Atlantic Horse Mackerel (Trachurus trachurus) Atlantic Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus), Blue Mackerel (Scomber australasicus), Indian Mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta), Japanese Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus niphonius), King Mackerel (Scomberomorus cavalla) and West African Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus tritor) are also prized as eating fish in the regions where they are commonly caught.

The majority of fish termed 'mackerel' belong to the Scombridae family (which also includes tuna and bonito). Generally mackerel are much smaller and slimmer than tuna, though in other respects they share many common characteristics. Their scales, if present at all, are extremely small. Like tuna and bonito, mackerel are voracious feeders, and swift and maneuverable swimmers which streamline themselves by retracting their fins into grooves on their body. Like other scombroids, their bodies are cylindrical with numerous finlets on the dorsal and ventral sides behind the dorsal and anal fins, but unlike the deep-bodied tuna, they are slim. The type species for the Scombridae mackerel is the Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus), by far the commonest mackerel sold in Britain. These fish are iridescent blue-green above with a silvery underbelly and twenty to thirty near vertical wavy black stripes running across their upper body.

The Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) is a coastal species found only in the north Atlantic. The stock on the west side of the Atlantic is largely independent of the stock on the east side. The stock on the east Atlantic currently operates as three separate stocks, the southern, western and North Sea stocks, each with their own migration patterns. Some mixing of the east Atlantic stocks takes place in feeding grounds towards the north, but there is almost no mixing between the east and west Atlantic stocks.

Mackerel are prolific broadcast spawners. Individual females lay between 300,000 and 1,500,000 eggs. Their eggs and larvae are pelagic, that is, they float free in the open sea. The larvae and juvenile mackerel feed on zooplankton. As adults they have sharp teeth, and hunt small crustaceans such as copepods, as well as forage fish, shrimp and squid. In turn they are hunted by larger pelagic animals such as tuna, billfish, sea lions, sharks and pelicans.

Mackerel is an important food fish that is consumed worldwide. As an oily fish, it is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids. The flesh of mackerel spoils quickly, especially in the tropics, and can cause scombroid food poisoning. Accordingly, it should be eaten on the day of capture, unless properly refrigerated or cured. For preservation, before the advent of commercial canning in the 19th Century, mackerel were hot smoked and smoked mackerel is still commonly sold in Britain. In France mackerel was traditionally pickled with large amounts of salt, which allowed it to be sold widely across the country.