Smoked Mackerel, Palestinian Couscous and Orange Salad

We are all on the same boat aren’t we? Stuffed full of potatoes, turkey (in our case pheasants), all sorts of snacks, eating from morning to night.

And the drinks? The aperitif, the digestif, the wine. Ah the wine. Wonderful delicious wine.

The holidays are hard on our bodies. It’s total indulgence. It’s heaven…

Until everything feels it’s going in slow mo because you can’t move fast enough from eating for days on end and all your body wants to do is lie down curled up into a ball and all you can manage are grutural sounds because everything is such an effort.
Yes ok, that was a bit dramatic, but scarily close to the truth.

Since then everything is getting back to normal speed (I actually wrote sleep, could it be because I am writing this at 4am? Maybe Brain is sending me subliminal messages to shut up and go to sleep. Also why Brain with capital B? Stupid Brain deciding things for me without my knowledge. Ok I’m ranting so let’s move on).

So yes, I’ve been getting back on track to normal eating habits and actually having time between meals to feel hungry. Which is luuuvehly! No more ‘What? We eating again? Didn’t we eat, like, just now?…Ok…’

I’ve been craving lighter meals and I’ve been having a fair bit of salads too despite the cold weather. I think my body is craving all this fresh stuff.

And what it wanted was a smoked mackerel salad. With deliciously juicy orange slices, crispy mixed salad leaves and some earthy couscous.

This salad is delicious. Seriously good. The citrus of the oranges cuts through the creaminess and oiliness from the fish perfectly. You then get some crispy fresh salad leaves and delicious earthy couscous. All of it drizzled by an orange dressing, which is absolutely divine. I love this dressing.

For Christmas Christoph and I gave each other stockings. And we filled it with some food bits. Grown up stockings. It’s such a cool idea and we loved all the little bits we got and which we are slowly trying out. One of the things that I put on Christoph’s stocking were these Palestinian couscous and we decided to use a little bit of it for this salad. All I can say is try it. It has so much more flavour than the normal couscous we are used to. It’s earthy and has real consistency and texture. Can’t wait to try it with other foods!

Recipe adapted from bbcgoodfood:

For the salad
150g mixed baby salad leaves ( I used a mixed bag that had baby spinach, baby red leafy, baby green leaf and rocket)
2 oranges
150g of Palestinian Couscous ( you can use normal couscous too, we have done in the past)
3 fillets of smoked mackerel (dependant on size of fillets)

For the dressing
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
3 tbsp olive oil
Juice of 1 orange

Prepare your couscous as per pack instructions. Our pack told us to cook it in a pan, making it different to normal couscous. ( I keep calling it normal because I’ve no idea how else to call it). Leave it to cool slightly before mixing it in with the salad or it will wilt your leaves.

While your couscous is cooking grab your mackerel fillets and put them under the grill. As they are smoked you don’t have to do this but I like the contrast of hot and cold.

Peel and slice the 2 oranges. Make the dressing.

Now to put everything together. Mix your couscous with your salad leaves. Top with the orange slices and mackerel and drizzle generously with the dressing.

Couldn’t be easier and it’s delicious and incredibly filling too. That said maybe my portion size was a little in the big side. Maybe the festive food craze is not totally over yet.