54: Mackerel with cumin and lemon, p120

Hubby very helpfully retrieved two mackerel for this recipe from the fishmonger, but less helpfully forgot that whole fishes come with guts inside and it's good form to ask said fishmonger to remove said guts before presenting fishes to wife. Grr. So I unexpectedly ended up gutting mackerel for the first time ever before this recipe was possible - thank goodness for google!

I probably made too long a cut along the belly of each fish as they kinda curled up a bit whilst grilling, so they didn't look like the picture in the book, and I'm afraid they did burn a little, but it didn't seem to be a problem.

As I've said before, I once got a fish bone stuck in my throat and it was a bit of a traumatic experience - which I remember everytime I eat whole fish and gets me a bit anxious, so this wasn't the most relaxing of meals... but it did taste jolly good. The flesh was cooked to perfection - I though it would dry out, especially since I did burn it a little, but it wasn't at all dry and was lovely. Most of the bones were either big and obvious, or tiny thin ones that even I was able to swallow without realising it, but I did get one inbetweener, of the throat-catching variety, which provoked a bit of a yak yak yak... but didn't actually stick. Phew. There's still two more mackerel recipes to go...