Smoked mackerel pate with griddled toast and cress salad

Smoked mackerel pate with griddled toast and cress salad

A great, quick starter or snack

A great, quick starter or snack

Serves 6

Cooks In10 minutes

DifficultySuper easy

Nutrition per serving

• Calories 359 18%

• Fat 22.8g 33%

• Saturates 4.9g 25%

• Sugars 3.2g 4%

• Salt 2.1g 35%

• Protein 19.6g 39%

• Carbs 20.9g 8%

• Fibre 0.9g -

Of an adult's reference intake

Ingredients

• 400 g smoked mackerel , from sustainable sources
• 200 g light cream cheese
• 3 lemons
• 1 small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley , leaves picked
• 2 small punnets of cress , snipped
• 2 sticks of celery , finely sliced, plus some of the celery leaves
• extra virgin olive oil
• 6 slices of good bread

Method

1. Peel the skin off the smoked mackerel and discard. Put the fish in a food processor, breaking it up slightly as you go. Add the cream cheese, the zest and most of the juice of 1 lemon and a few leaves of parsley. Whiz for 20 seconds or so, or until you get a nice creamy pâté. Season to taste.
2. Toss the snipped cress, remaining parsley leaves and celery leaves together in a large bowl, and add the celery sticks. Dress with a good squeeze of lemon juice, a splash of extra virgin olive oil and some salt and pepper.
3. Heat a griddle pan. When hot, add the bread, in batches, and press down with something heavy like a frying pan so the bread is squashed against the griddle ridges. Toast for about 1 minute, turning halfway.
4. Cut the remaining lemon into wedges and serve alongside the pâté with the griddled toast, the herb salad and a nice glass of chilled white.