Sicilian-style mackerel with white beans and caponata
Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 minsTotal time: 
Recipe photograph by Martin Poole
Sicilian-style mackerel with white beans and caponata
Caponata is a wonderful sweet and sour veggie dish hailing from Sicily. Serve any leftover caponata, with or without the beans, on some warm garlicky sourdough toasts
Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 minsTotal time: 
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Nutritional information (serving)
Calories
632Kcal
Fat
41gr
Saturates
5gr
Carbs
33gr
Sugars
21gr
Fibre
11gr
Protein
27gr
Salt
0.8gr
Sarah Akhurst
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst’s recipes
Sarah Akhurst
Our Food Director Sarah is a food obsessive, and spends most of her time scoping out the latest food trends, experimenting in her own kitchen, or making her family wait to eat while she photographs every dinner she makes for the 'gram! A complete Middle Eastern food junkie, she is never far from a good shawarma marinade, a pinch of Aleppo chilli or a sprig of dill
See more of Sarah Akhurst’s recipes
Ingredients
- rapeseed oil, for frying
- 4 fresh mackerel fillets (2 x 180g packs)
For the white bean caponata
- 4 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 1 red onion, finely diced
- 3 celery sticks, finely diced
- 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
- 1 large aubergine, cut into 1cm dice
- 1 tbsp tomato purée
- 300g passata
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp clear honey
- 2 bay leaves
- 50g pitted green olives, roughly chopped
- 50g sultanas
- 50g toasted pine nuts
- 1 tbsp capers
- 1 x 570g jar organic white beans (we used Bold Bean Co), drained
- a handful of chopped fresh parsley, plus extra to serve
Step by step
- For the caponata, heat half of the oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion, celery and garlic for 6-8 minutes, until softened. Add the remaining oil and the aubergine and fry for another 6-8 minutes, until softened. Stir through the tomato purée and cook for 2 minutes, then add the passata, red wine vinegar, honey, bay leaves, olives, sultanas and pine nuts. Cook, covered, for 25-30 minutes, adding a splash of water if needed – it should be wet but not too saucy. Remove from the heat when the aubergine is nice and soft then stir through the capers and white beans. Season to taste and set aside to cool slightly – you want to serve it warm not hot.
- Add a little oil to a frying pan and fry the mackerel, skin-side down, for 3-4 minutes until crisp, then flip and fry for 1 minute until cooked through.
- Stir most of the parsley through the caponata and spoon into shallow bowls. Top with the fish and serve garnished with the remaining parsley.
