This salad is both light a fresh from the fennel, apple, greens and the zing of the lemon but at same time the smoked mackerel packs a punch of flavour making the salad feel meaty and substantial. I love this in the summer for dinner.

This is an adaptation of a salad recipe I picked up in Waitrose on one of their recipe cards, don’t you just love those!  The original recipe featured cucumber quite heavily and whilst I do like cucumber, it can be a bit watery and I much prefer beetroot with smoked mackerel.  I also had a play around with a few other versions of this salad and my conclusion is that as with most salads there is a lot of scope to adapt it to your tastes.  

What I think made this salad stand out for me is the apple, it was an addition that I wouldn’t ordinarily have used and it was fab!  I think what made it really work was that I used a granny smith apple which is a not too sweet, sharp, almost sour apple with a killer crunch. It just cut through the oily smoky mackerel so well and added a slightly sweet tang. Lots of lemon is also a must in this salad. I used dill here but I think it would really well with parsley as well.

Serves 2

Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

Dressing

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• ¼ unwaxed lemon zest

• 2 tbsp lemon juice (about 1/3 of a lemon)

• ¼ tsp clear honey

• Small handful dill, (about 10g), chopped

• Salt and pepper

Salad

• ½ fennel bulb, cored removed and the tough, dried out outer layer removed if needed

• 80g mixed watercress, spinach and rocket salad – I used one of those salad bags you get from the supermarket, you could sue whatever you like. I do think watercress in particular works well though in this salad so would recommend you include that

• About 4 small cooked beetroots, sliced

• ½ granny smith apple

• Approx 160g smoked mackerel fillets (2 fillets)

Method

1. Mix the dressing ingredients together, using about half the dill and setting the other half aside to scatter on the salad at the end.

2. Slice the cored fennel thinly across the width of the fennel, slice thinly as if you cut it thickly it may be a bit of a tough mouthful to chew. You can either include the fennel fronds, or add them to the salad at the end of just discard, whatever you prefer.

3. Plate up the salad leaves with the sliced fennel and add the slices of beetroot.

4. Core the granny smith apple and cut in half. Cut the half you plan to eat in the salad in slices or matchsticks and add to the plate. It’s best to do this right before eating as the apple will start to brown as soon as the flesh is exposed to the air.  

5. Peel the skin off and flake the smoked mackerel on to the salad.

6. Spoon the dressing on top of the salad along with an extra scattering of dill and the fennel fronds and serve with some lemon wedges on the side.