Mackerel and rhubarb

Following on from the success of mackerel with gooseberries on The Great British Menu, I thought I'd try rhubarb and mackerel. A tangy traditional English fruit in season, paired with an oily fish in season; if gooseberry was so good, how could rhubarb not work?

I'm sure I'd read about the paring somewhere before, but I couldn't find any recipes apart from Nigel Slater's roasted rhubarb version and I wasn't prepared to put the oven on especially. So I went freestyle.

I sweated off a quarter of a finely diced onion. Then added one chopped stalk of rhubarb to the pan along with a couple of dessert-spoons of orange juice and a spoon of soft brown sugar. I left the rhubarb to soften whilst I fried the mackerel fillets in olive oil with rosemary. Then I deglazed the pan with a splash of red wine vinegar.

The combo worked pretty well but I think I had a bit too much rhubarb for the amount of fish. Also, I think I was so preoccupied with the taste of the rhubarb that I forgot to taste the fish, in that it wasn't the dominant flavour!

It was tasty with some Jersey Royal's, but I'm definitely going to have to try it again before making my mind up...