Smoked Mackeral & Beetroot Salad with Salsa Verde

It's Friday night, it's after ten pm & i'm still writing this bloody blog. It's not all glamorous dinner parties & perfectly risen cakes, it's more sweating in the kitchen, trying to write things that sound vaguely interesting & attempting to take artistic pictures while your food grows cold. Bah. Saying that i still love it, i still think about food all time, i still think about lunch while eating breakfast & i still plan dinner menus while cycling to work. I'm classed as a 'hobby blogger' i believe & i very much doubt i will ever give up the day job & sit gazing out the window while writing a daily blog about how maaaaarvelous everything is while being paid. I may sound a little bitter, but i'm not, even an old gas bag like me would eventually run out of words.

My culinary hit list for twenty twelve seems to be growing rather shrinking & that's annoying. I should be happy that i'm full of cooking inspiration, but instead, i'm getting cranky that i can't keep up with it all. There are fifty two weeks in a year so i should really just shut up & get on with it. Over all not the most positive sounding waffle this week, but even the most cheeriest people are cranky on the odd occasion. 

This is more a collection of ingredients rather than cooking, but again what qualifies as actual cooking? Stop thinking about & just make then eat it. This dish makes me hopeful that January is going to end & the getting up in the dark, leaving work in the dark & general gloom of the first month is going to end. I hate January.

Ingredients:

This serves two people

• three mackerel fillets
• three raw beetroots (you can buy them already cooked & in sweeten water if you like)
• one large avocado
• one bag of rocket

Salsa Verde

• one bunch of parsley
• one clove of garlic - crushed
• two tbsps of capers - roughly chopped
• four anchovies fillets
• one shallot - finely chopped
• zest & juice of a lemon
• olive oil

Method:

Take the beetroots, slice the tails off & put them on the boil as you would potatoes, cook until tender - this should take about 30 minutes. Once they are ready, put them into cold water to cool & carefully peel off the skin which will come of easily. While the beetroots are cooking make the Salsa Verde which is ridiculously quick & easy. Either take all the ingredients & pulse in a food processor until roughly chopped then mixed with enough olive oil until you achieve the consistence or chop everything by hand & combine with olive oil. 

Take the beetroots & avocado & quarter then lay round the plate then take the rocket & place in the middle of the plate. Lay the mackerel fillets & top with a dollop of salsa verde.

Enjoy.