Recipes to make oily fish attractive to my children

[emkana]

my dd's are not fussy eaters really, but I am at a bit of a loss at how to cook oily fish for them. Just not experienced with cooking fish, but feeling very guilty because at the moment they're not reallly having any .
So what types of oily fish to use? And how to prepare it?
Look forward to your recipes! TIA!

[hercules]

I give mine smoked mackeral and do nothing to it apart from microwave for a few minutes.

[meggymoo]

Message withdrawn

[NannyL]

my charges love salmon and broccoilli taglietelli

i basically cook salmon fillets in milk for 10 mins ish.... use that milk to make a cheese sauce... add some cooked broccolli (and normally sweetcorn too) and mix it all in with taglietelli!

we all love it!

[serah]

This is the official recipe I started with - chop and change as you like (I mean the kids surely would simply refuse if not garnished with parsley and lemon? ) I love peas in my risotto too. Onions as good as shallots, that kind of thing. Dont warm the mackerel for kids - flake it in and bobs your uncle!


4 fillets smoked mackerel, skinned
3 tbsps olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 leeks, washed and finely sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
250g (9oz) risotto rice, eg Arborio or Carnaroli
100 ml dry white wine
500ml hot chicken stock
50g (2oz) butter
200g (7oz) mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
50g (2oz) freshly grated Parmesan
finely chopped parsley

Lay the mackerel fillets in a dish and warm in a very low oven (100°C/275°F) while you make the risotto.

Sauté the shallots and sliced leeks in olive oil until translucent. Add the crushed garlic, stir well then add rice and stir for a minute or two before adding the white wine. Bring to the boil and let the rice absorb the wine before gradually adding the hot chicken stock, one ladleful at a time, letting the rice absorb the liquid before adding more stock.

While the rice is cooking (it will take about 10-15 minutes), sauté the sliced mushrooms in butter and add to the risotto, together with any pan juices, just before the rice is cooked. Add the Parmesan and season generously with pepper.

Divide the risotto among 4 warmed plates and lay a mackerel fillet on each helping. Scatter chopped parsley on top and serve with a wedge of lemon.

[moondog]

Sardines (tinned) on toast? Big fave in our house.
They also love tinned mackerel mixed with brown rice and tomatoes.
We bbq fresh sardines and mackerel alot too and it is gone in seconds.

[gingerbear]

dd loves 'pink fish' - salmon fillet cooked in foil in the oven with lemon juice and pepper.

[Gobbledigook]

Eeew, oily fish! Bleurgh! I think you can get drops of the vitamin that you can plop in their cereal without them knowing! I'd go for that option. But then, I don't like fish except tuna and cod. I don't know where my children get their fussiness from?!

[motherinferior]

Mash sardines with an equal weight of butter and have it in sandwiches or on toast.

Mash a tin of pink salmon into pesto or mix into a tomato sauce with cheese on top with pasta.

Both quick, easy and not too upsetting if they won't touch it.

[moondog]

How about fishcakes?

[motherinferior]

We also have a staple of smoked mackerel flaked into rice, poss with peas as well, and anything else that takes your fancy (cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olive oil, lemon juice) in the Inferiority Complex.

You can put tinned sardines into a tomato pasta sauce too.

[emkana]

Thanks, this is great! How do I make fishcakes [dumb look emoticon]?

[moondog]

God I love oily fish. We eat sardines all the time and I insist on gutting them myself.Here in Turkey you can buy fresh anchovies which they gut for you. Imagine how labour intensive that is?

[motherinferior]

DP doesn't like fresh oily fish, the twit.

[emkana]

so when you use tinned sardines or mackerel, do you buy the stuff in tomato sauce or just plain or in oil or whatever it is?

[moondog]

Oh,in oil or brine.Never tomato sauce.

[motherinferior]

Olive oil or spring water.

[moondog]

God,I'm now thinking obsessively about grilled sardines,salad,bread and white wine.
Despite having had grilled quail for supper..some people are never satisfied eh?)

[moondog]

Well,I generally gut them and bake them for about 20 mins-no further embellishments. Find that the sking lifts off easily as does the flesh from the bones.
My parents prefer to scale them,wrap them in vineleaves and grill.

Either way is excellent.

[moondog]

(Don't eat the bones,but like to crunch them in the tinned variety. Must keep the osteoporosis at bay.)

[Redhotmamma]

Smoked mackerel pate on fresh bread. You whizz a couple of smoked mackerel fillets in food processor with a packet of philadelphia and a squeeze of lemon.

[shimmy21]

Smoked mackeral pate - easiest recipe ever.
put it in the food processor with a pot of quark, squirt of lemon and a sprinkle of black pepper and zschoom it all up. Eat it all up on whatever bread/crostini/pitta etc you like. yum.

[serah]

fishcakes are dead easy Emkana... mashed potato and a little onion (spring, shallot, spanish whatever), whatever seasoning you like and mix in whatever fish you fancy. You might like to add an egg to hold it together, but see how it goes, and you coat them in egg also to get some breadcrumbs (freshly milled, not that orange kaka!) to stick to them.

[Blu]

I buy 'skinless and boneless' sardine fillets from the sardine shelf at Sainsbury's and give it to DS in sandwiches - tho' he enjoys it cold in chunks.
Buy frozen fillets of wild salmon in a plastic bag from Sainsbury's /tesco and use in any other way you would cook fish: wrap in foil parcels with olive oil/herbs/lemon, and serve with rice or mash.
Make fish pie which includes salmon.
Jacket potato with mashed mackerel (or mashed up smoked mackerel)
Fresh mackerel is really creamy if baked. (get big mackerel, bake/roast and then fillet before giving to kids with mash and parsley sauce)