Big Mack(erel) burger recipe: A fishy twist on a fast-food classic

A festival-born invention from The Snack Hacker, AKA George Egg, this mackerel burger mashes up fast-food nostalgia with salty, seafood mischief

A festival-born mash-up: this Big Mack(erel) swaps beef for mackerel, caviar sauce and a shower of pork scratchings (Matt Lincoln)

“A mutual invention that my friend Martyn Odell (@lagomchef online) and I came up with one summer when we were booked to cook at the Big Feastival on Alex James’ farm in the Cotswolds,” explains comedian, cook and content creator George Egg, known as the Snack Hacker.

“While this was an idea we’d vaguely mooted previously, we kind of made it up as we went along, using sachets we found on the site for the sauce and mixing them in a paper cup, plus some other ingredients we’d both brought along and bits we pilfered from the kitchen backstage.”

George Egg’s big mack(erel)

Makes: 2 burgers

Ingredients:

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp sugar (white or brown)

1 red onion, sliced into half moons

1 Little Gem lettuce, shredded

Small bunch of dill, ripped up into small fronds

5 sachets (or 5 tsp) mayonnaise

2 sachets (or 2 tsp) English mustard

2 sachets (or 2 tsp) tomato ketchup

2 tsp lumpfish caviar

2 unsliced brioche burger buns

2 fresh mackerel, filleted (or 4 fresh mackerel fillets)

Neutral oil, for shallow-frying

Several pinches of black lime powder

1 bag of pork scratchings, crushed

Method:

George Egg’s ‘The Snack Hacker’ is packed with recipes like this – silly, salty and impossible not to try at least once (Blink)

1. In a small bowl, mix the red wine vinegar with the sugar, 2 tablespoons of water and a pinch of salt, and drop in the red onion slices. Give everything a scrunch with your hand and press the onions down into the pickling liquid with a mug or another bowl so they’re squashed and submerged.

2. In a separate bowl, mix the lettuce with the dill fronds.

3.  Stir the mayonnaise into the mustard, ketchup and caviar. It’ll look really pretty, like a pale pink burger sauce strewn with tiny black beads.

4. Slice the brioche into three (Big Mac-style). Lightly oil the cut sides, and over a medium-to-low heat toast all the cut sides of the bread in a dry frying pan. Set them aside.

5. With a sharp knife, score a series of very shallow cuts across the skin of the mackerel (this will stop it curling up too much in the pan). Lightly oil the fillets and with the heat at medium, lay them skin-side down in the pan and press down lightly on the flesh to keep the skins in contact with the metal. After half a minute, remove your hand and season the flesh sides. When you can see the mackerel is cooked (opaque) just over halfway, flip the fillets over and turn off the heat to let the residual heat finish the cooking. While that’s happening, start assembling.

6. In the middle of your wrapping paper place the bottom bun, then a mackerel fillet (you may need to break the fillets in half if they’re from a big fish), spoon over some of the sauce, a clump of the pickled onions and a pinch of black lime powder, then the middle bun, a little more sauce, the other fillet, sauce, lettuce and dill mixed together and finally a big pinch of the crushed pork scratchings and more lime powder before crowning with the top section of the bun. Wrap it, leave it a minute, serve it.

Recipe from ‘The Snack Hacker: Rule-Breaking Recipes for Cooks and Non-Cooks’ by George Egg (Blink, £22).