1,420 easy and fully explained recipes, with 33,930 photos and 78 videos

Mackerel rillettes

This recipe for mackerel rillettes (or potted mackerel) starts with poaching the fish. The flesh is then taken off the bones and forked into a seasoned mixture of butter, mustard, cream and lemon juice.

In France this is traditionally eaten as an aperitif snack, served on small slices of toast.

43K 5 3

Last modified on: June 19^th 2019

Keywords for this recipe:

For 300 g, you will need:

1 2 mackerel
2 1 tablespoon coarse salt
3 70 g butter
4 2 tablespoons cream
5 1 tablespoon French mustard
6 2 tablespoons lemon juice
7 parsley
8 salt
9 pepper
10 chive flowers (optional)
Total weight: 860 grams

Change these quantities to make: 100 g 150 g 300 g 600 g 900 g

Change measures: Metric

Metric weight Metric volumes

How long does it take?

Time required for this recipe:

Preparation	Cooking	Start to finish
40 min.	20 min.	1 hour

At what time:

When will I finish if I start the recipe at ... ?
When should I start for the recipe to be ready at ... ?
Work this out...

Step by step recipe

Stage 1

Ask your fishmonger to prepare 2 mackerel for you: cleaned and the head cut off.

Stage 2 - 3 min.

Rinse thoroughly under cold running water, then put in a large pan of cold water with 1 tablespoon coarse salt.

Stage 3 - 20 min.

Put on low heat and poach gently at a simmer for about 10 minutes.

Ideally, check the temperature of the fish flesh with an electronic thermometer. It will be cooked once the centre of the thickest part reaches 122°F (50°C).

Stage 4 - 30 min.

Remove the mackerel from the poaching water and leave to cool, then take all the flesh off the bones and discard the rest (skin, bones, etc.).

Unfortunately, there's no getting away from it: this is a long and tedious job.

Put all the boned flesh into a bowl.

Stage 5 - 5 min.

Add 70 g butter, 2 tablespoons cream, 1 tablespoon French mustard, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, the finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper to the fish.

Stage 6 - 2 min.

Mix well with a fork.

Check the seasoning. Transfer into jars and leave overnight, at least, in the fridge.

Stage 7

When you want to serve your rilletes, toast some slices of bread (rounds of French baguette here).

Stage 8

Spread the rillettes generously on the toast and decorate, if you like, with a few chive flowers. Then enjoy!

Remarks

Do feel free to vary either the ingredients or the amounts in this recipe. The general spirit of it is: poached mackerel flesh, a little butter and/or cream, herbs and spices of your choice, plus a hint of acidity (normally lemon juice, but vingar or white wine will also work).

For a tastier version, poach the mackerel in a fish stock, rather than salted water.

Keeping

A few days in the fridge, in a sealed jar.

Source

Home made.

Nutritional information

Whole recipe
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
1,879 Kcal or 7,867 Kj	157 gr	8 gr	135 gr
94 %	60 %	1 %	20 %

Per 100 g
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
219 Kcal or 917 Kj	18 gr	1 gr	16 gr
11 %	7 %	<1 %	2 %

% are calculated relative to a Recommended Dietary Intake or RDI of 2000 k-calories or 8400 k-joules by day for a woman (change to a man).

Possible allergens in this recipe: Fish, Milk, Mustard

How much will it cost?

For 300 g : 2.95 €

Change currency:

Note: Be careful, these prices are only an estimate, you can consult the table of prices by ingredients used for this estimate.

This recipe uses (among others)

	Butter: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Crêpes Suzette, Genoese croque-monsieur, Lime meringue tart, Spaghetti with mussels and basil, Chocolate cereal bars, ... All
	Lemon juice: You can check-out other recipes which use it, like for example: Rémoulette of celeriac, Beetroot and cream cheese verrines, Chocolate mousse, Souda salad, Sautéed oyster mushrooms, ... All
	Cream: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Quartet of brassicas with cream , Green beans with tomato cream sauce, Fisherman's Ragout, Potimarron (Japanese chestnut pumpkin) purée, Hearty leek and sprout soup, ... All
	Mackerel: You can check-out other recipes which use it, like for example: Mackerel Fillets in White Wine, ... All

Other recipes you may also like

Morteau sausage

In this recipe Morteau sausage is cooked on a bed of potatoes cut into medium sized pieces. The idea of this recipe is that the pricked Morteau sausage cooks slowly, so that its smoky flavour seeps down onto the potatoes - it's a pure delight.
1.2M 34.1 1 hour 31 min. October 13^th 2010

How to cook hard-boiled eggs properly

A hard-boiled egg is properly cooked when: shell is not broken, white and yolk are firm, yolk is only yellow with no traces of green around it. Here are some tips to make this easy.
1.4M 65 1 hour 28 min. November 4^th 2013

French croissants

In this famous and highly technical recipe from a piece of yeast-based flaky dough we are going to cut and shape ("roll") croissants.
607K 24.4 2 hours 34 min. June 26^th 2019

Pâté de campagne

Here is a personal version of the famous country pâté. It's an interesting recipe to prepare in large quantities because it keeps well and freezes easily. The secret of a good pâté is of course the ingredients, but also how it is cooked.
2.0M 23.7 7 hours 54 min. October 3^rd 2019

Passion fruit jellies

Usually to make fruit jellies or (fruit "paste"), it's like jam but you need to cook fruit pulp and sugar much longer. Unfortunately, this long cooking is bad for both vitamins and flavour. In this recipe we use a special jam gelling agent, to reduce cooking time as much as possible .
320K4 2 hours 30 min. July 4^th 2018

News list of cooking-ez.com

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.

Post your comment or question

Follow this recipe

If you are interested in this recipe, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the recipe is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.

Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.