There are many different types of mackerel they all have a stripy mottled pattern to their skin and the types are generally confined to defined areas. In the UK where  I used to live we had the small atlantic mackerel which are abundant and make great eating. In New zealand we have the larger Jack mackerel and typically they have not been favoured as an eating fish and I think they often are used as bait to catch the highly prized snapper. But I think Jack mackerel is an excellent eating fish, it is a small fish so low in mercury, it is an oily fish so high in omega 3 , it is moist and soft to eat with an excellent flavour and it is, for some reason very inexpensive, I can’t figure out why. In this recipe I am grilling the mackerel under a very hot grill and serving it with roasted white vegetables and a velvety green sauce that cunningly uses some of the roasted vegetables to thicken and voluptulate (if thats a word) the sauce.Ingredients. For 2 with left overs.

2 large jack mackerel fillets, these have the skin on but no bones, I purchased my beautiful fillets from Tasman seafoods in central Nelson. If you are using atlantic mackerel you will be using the whole fish as they are much smaller.

a large bunch of leeks.

1 small cauliflower or half a large one.

1 large fennel bulb.

4 -5 cloves of garlic

1 lemon

1 dried chilli or equivalent in flakes.

60ml of good olive oil.

1 large bunch of parsley

1 also grilled some asparagus to go with it as its in season so its obligatory.Prepare the white vegetables for roasting, cut the cauliflower into florets, remove the top from the fennel and slice and cut the leeks into batons. Peel 4 of the cloves of garlic and put everything into a roasting tray and drizzle with a good tablespoon of the olive oil and sprinkle with some salt, I like to hide the garlic under the other vegetables as you dont want it to brown just soften.Roast at 180c fan for 40 minutes. After the first 15 minutes stir and turn the fennel over, also here I have covered up the cauliflower with the fennel as the cauliflower was browning much quicker. Return to the oven and stir again after another 15 minutes.After the 40 minutes the vegetables will be a little caramelised and cooked through. Remove from the oven and turn the oven onto high grill.

While the vegetables are roasting prepare the mackerel. Cut a few slits through the skin side. Zest the lemon, press the remaining clove of garlic and add to 1 table spoon of olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Rub this mixture over both sides of the fish.

Cover an oven try with foil put the mackerel skin side up onto the tray. If you are going be doing some asparagus, which I highly recommend, add this to the tray with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt.This will take just ten minutes under the hot grill. When its done turn the oven off and bring it out of the oven to rest for 5 minutes before serving, return the roast vegetables to the hot oven to warm up for the five minutes. While the fish is grilling prepare everything for the sauce. Remove the stems from the parsley and roughly chop, remove the seeds from the chilli, unless you like it really hot, retrieve the garlic from the tray of roasted vegetables and pull out a couple of tablespoons of the roasted leeks and a slice of the fennel. All this goes into a food processor along with 30ml of olive oil and the juice of the lemon.Blitz until smooth and creamy.   The leek and fennel tie everything together and make a very creamy sauce. 

Serve everything on a large platter. Sadly with the jack mackerel the skin is difficult to eat as it has sharp razor sticky out bits and its hard to completely remove all the scales, so I discard it although I hate to do so.

total carbs are 80gms for everything including the obligatory asparagus, although quite a bit of the carbs are fibre so I am estimating if you can manage to eat half this recipe the digestible carbs would be around 20gms.