Gordon Ramsay’s mackerel and potato salad is an open sandwich. Warm Charlotte potatoes are cubed and mixed with scallions, chives, lemon juice and crème fraîche. They go on a toasted crusty roll under a pan-fried mackerel fillet with crisp skin. It serves 1 and takes about 30 minutes.
Gordon made it for the Glass House in Ambleside on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, where he found the lunchtime sandwich menu “an embarrassment.” He swapped it for things on toast. In Kitchen Heaven (2004) he says even the kitchen porter, who had a fish phobia, once ate three of them for lunch.
He calls mackerel “the most underrated fish in the sea today, and yet it’s full of flavour,” and this was his “very cheap but very exciting” way to prove it. It went on the Glass House menu and, as he puts it, “was an instant hit.”
Gordon Ramsay’s Mackerel on Toast with a Warm Potato Salad
Course: LunchCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy1
10
minutes20
770
kcalGordon Ramsay’s mackerel on toast with a warm potato salad from Kitchen Heaven (2004), page 50: a pan-fried mackerel fillet on a toasted crusty roll. These ingredients make 1 open mackerel sandwich with a chive and crème fraîche potato salad.
Ingredients
2 to 3 Charlotte potatoes
2 scallions (spring onions), finely sliced
small bunch of fresh chives, finely chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon crème fraîche
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ crusty roll, toasted
1 small mackerel, filleted and boned
olive oil
Directions
- Poach the potatoes: Put the potatoes in a pan of salted water with their skins on and cook them at a gentle simmer until soft, about 15 to 20 minutes. Drain them.
- Make the potato salad: When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them into cubes. Mix them with the scallions, chives and lemon juice, stir in the crème fraîche and season with salt and pepper.
- Spread the toast: Spread the warm potato salad thickly over the cut side of the toasted roll.
- Fry the mackerel: Make a few shallow cuts in the skin of each fillet. Heat a nonstick skillet until hot, add a little olive oil and lay the fillets in skin side down. Cook until the skin is crisp, then turn them and cook the other side for a few minutes.
- Serve: Lay the mackerel on the potato salad, skin side up, and eat it while it’s still warm.
Notes
- In the book photo the fillet lies skin side up along the whole roll, so the crisp skin stays on top and doesn't go soft on the potatoes.
- Calories are about 770 for the sandwich. Most of them come from the mackerel and the olive oil.
FAQs
Why cut into the mackerel skin?
So the fillet stays flat. Gordon says he made “inserts in the skin to stop the fish curling up,” and he tells you to do the same.
It matters because in Ultimate Cookery Course (2012) he cooks skin-on fish skin side down for 90 percent of the time. The other side only gets a brief finish.
How pink should the mackerel be?
A little pink in the middle is right. “Don’t be scared to keep the mackerel pink,” Gordon says.
Small mackerel fillets are thin, so once the skin is crisp, a few minutes on the flesh side is all they need.
Which potatoes should I use?
Waxy ones, and Charlotte is his pick. In Ultimate Home Cooking (2013) he names waxy Charlottes as the potato for boiling and for salads.
He uses them again in his warm potato salad with a honey mustard dressing. If you can’t find Charlottes, any small waxy potato works, but skip floury ones like King Edwards, which he saves for mash and roasting.
Can I make it for 4 people?
Yes, just multiply. The book version serves 1, so for 4 use 8 to 12 Charlotte potatoes, 8 scallions, a big bunch of chives, 4 tablespoons each of lemon juice and crème fraîche, 2 crusty rolls and 4 small mackerel.
Mix the potato salad in one bowl, then fry the fillets in batches so the pan stays hot.
Do I have to fillet the mackerel myself?
No. Gordon says “You can always ask your fishmonger to fillet and bone it for you.”
If you want to try, his Ultimate Cookery Course method is to cut along the belly, lay the fish belly down and press along the backbone to flatten it, then work the backbone free with your fingers and a sharp knife. He says not to worry about any small bones, because they’ll be soft enough to eat.
Zaytouna Studio Team is the kitchen team behind Chef Ramsay Recipes. We cook Gordon Ramsay’s recipes from his cookbooks and videos in a home kitchen and write them up for yours, with US and metric measurements.