My very first posting (I see now that older postings cannot be referenced by a single posting URL but only through the archive month page) was about making sushi on a Cornish campsite. I fancied some home made mackerel sushi and had taken my bamboo mat and some sushi nori with me; I unfortunately forgot to take Japanese rice.

Since healthy eating of raw fish depends on real freshness, I went across to Trelawney's at Newlyn to buy freshly landed mackerel.

Trelawney

I also bought a piece of salmon - which I suspect was not landed in Newlyn - and some samphire. Plan A was to make some sushi rolls with our supermarket rice, however since that was quite inappropriate and did not stick we had to go to plan B - ceviche.

Ceviche is raw fish with a citrus-based marinade. I have never been to South America but like the ideaof ceviche; but absolutely no authenticity is claimed for what I did. Citrus juices can chemically cook raw fish so the taste will depend on how long the fish has been in the marinade. Leaving the marinated for say 10 minutes gives a raw fish texture while leaving it for an hour or more gives more of a cooked texture.

Campsite ceviche

The following is what we did:

Serves 3

Ingredients

4 mackerel fillets
1 small salmon steak
half red pepper
4 spring onions
50 g samphire
handful of coriander leaves
handful of parsley leaves
1 lime
half lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp soya saucee
1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
1 clove garlic

Method

1. Remove scales from mackerel fillets. Take a sharp knife and start to separate the flesh from the scales starting at the tail. After a few centimetres the scales can be pulled off. The transparent scales are not edible while the silvery skin underneath is.
2. Remove skin/scales from the salmon
3. Finely cut up the fish and put into bowl.
4. Finely chop the pepper, spring onions, samphire, coriander and parsley and add to bowl.
5. Squeeze lime and lemon and mix juice with olive oil, soya sauce and finely chopped garlic
6. Add chilli flakes if wanted. Add liquid to bowl and mix gently.
7. Leave for at least 10 minutes and longer if you want a more 'cooked' texture to the fish. We left it one hour in our camping fridge waiting for my son to return to the beach.
8. Serve with a light summery wine like Frascati or vinho verde and tiger rolls with sea salt and black pepper (Tesco's in our case)