The rain has settled in now and looks as if it could be with us for the next few days.

But before it started seven mackerel were caught off Owen Island. Sadly they weren’t caught by me. But they were handed over so I could make a mackerel tartare.

The recipe had been cut out of The Financial Times magazine and sent to me years ago. Periodically I have come across and meant to have to hand the ingredients for making it but for whatever reason I have not got round to it.

I did so this year which is perhaps why we have caught so few mackerel the first week we were here.

The ingredients consisted of a cucumber, some cocktail gherkins and capers.

The mackerel were filleted down by the beach and the guts and bones fed to the birds. The recipe suggested the fillets should be skinned as well but having made a hash of skinning the one fillet I decided it would work just as well with the skin left on.

The fillets were put to one side whilst I cured some skinned and seeded cucumber in a mixture of salt and sugar.

The fillets were then chopped into small pieces and mixed with chopped gherkins and capers, the juice of one lemon, some olive oil and a good grounding on salt and pepper.

By the time this was done the cucumber was cured and I rinsed it and chopped it fine and stirred it into the mackerel mixture. It was all left to rest for an hour before being eaten.

It was fought over.