Flora Shedden’s Supper collects over 100 delicious and doable recipes, aiming to show how home cooks can elevate even the most ordinary dinners at home into something joyful and celebratory. You can test out her recipe for grilled mackerel with parsley salsa below. 

Supper
By Flora Sneddon
Published by Hardie Grant 

This is a perfectly light supper for a warm evening. It can be paired with lots of bread and colourful, jewel-like salads for a hungry household, but can also make for an excellent solo dinner with some potatoes and a few salad leaves. 

Preheat the grill (broiler) to its highest setting. 

In a food processor or using a stick blender and bowl, blitz together the parsley, oil, capers, garlic and lemon juice until very smooth. This should take roughly 2 minutes. 

Chop the cherry tomatoes into small pieces – I like to do quarters or eighths, but this is entirely dependent on your patience! 

Mix the parsley sauce with the tomatoes to create a vibrant green salsa. Season to taste and set aside. 

Pat the mackerel fillets dry with kitchen paper to help the fish crisp up under the grill. Place on a roasting tray (pan), skin-side up, with a small piece of baking paper underneath (this helps prevent the fish from sticking to the tray, however you don’t need too much as any excess may burn underneath the grill). Drizzle the skin with a little olive oil and season generously with some salt and pepper. Grill (broil) for 4–6 minutes depending on the size of your fish. The skin should blister and blacken a little and the flesh should be just cooked and flaking nicely. 

Serve immediately with the salsa and some fennel fronds and flowers (or any other herbs you have to hand). This recipe is also delicious served with a dry white wine, but then again so is everything … 

Serves 2 

30 g (1 oz) flat-leaf parsley 

3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil 

1 tbsp capers 

1 garlic clove 

juice of 1/2 lemon 

250 g (9 oz) mixed cherry 

tomatoes 

2 mackerel, butterflied 

olive oil, for drizzling 

fennel fronds and flowers 

(optional) 

salt and freshly ground 

black pepper 

SUBS 

parsley – half basil and 

half dill 

capers – 3 anchovies 

mackerel – sardines 

fennel fronds – dill 

Supper by Flora Shedden (Hardie Grant, £22) Photography ©Laura Edwards

Supper by Flora Sneddon is published by Hardie Grant, priced £22.