Mackerel Baked in Lemon flavored Salt

The idea of baking a whole fish in salt has been with me for quite some time. I don't know whether it is because I think the fish will be deliciously moist or whether it is because I think the whole ritual has great potential from a photographer's point of view. Nevertheless, I tried, I conquered...and here is my journey!

A while back, my topic for that particular morning's radio show was salt, the various kinds as well as a few recipes using different kinds of salt. Since that day, I have been inundated with emails and phone calls about the salt and I promise I will put together a post still, but at the moment, life is just a bit too hectic. My husband played rugby this weekend and snapped his Achilles, so right now, I play mom's taxi, secretary, receptionist, boss, nurse, teacher and whatever job someone else is not willing to do.Time for blogging, social networking and writing is limited if not non-existent and the energy and passion for cooking is not what it should be.



Having said that, I am a foodie at heart so when I saw the beautiful, fresh mackerel at the market, I could not resist buying them for my baking-in-salt-experiment. I wanted lots of lemon flavor in the fish so in stead of stuffing the fish with slices of lemon, I made lots of lemon-flavored salt to act as a blanket for my fish while baking.



Mackerel Baked in Lemon Flavored Fish



Lemon-flavored salt 



500gr coarse sea salt

zest of 2 lemons

a few sprigs of rosemary

1 egg white or a little water



Place all the ingredients in a food processor and run the machine until the salt is light yellow on color and smells divine!



For the fish



3  smallish mackerel - gutted and cleaned

the lemon flavored salt





Preheat oven to 180 C. After cleaning the fish, take a oven pan big enough for all the fish and lay a thin layer of the flavored salt in in the bottom. Place the fish on top and cover completely with the salt. Bake for 1 hour, remove the salt crust and the skin of the mackerel(it comes off with the salt) and enjoy the lovely juice fish fillets with with garlic aioli and thick slices of farm bread. A very rustic and social meal to serve!

As for the styling and photographs , I'm not sure, but it was the best I could do in the 5 minutes I had.What do you think?