The mackerel toast at Mabel’s Gone Fishing, a popular seafood spot in San Diego, is just a few simple ingredients: mackerel, bread, a few peppers, and oil. However, behind that simplicity is a five-day process that begins the second the fish gets delivered to the restaurant. “[The mackerel toast] is such a simple dish where there’s really no place to hide,” says Mabel’s Gone Fishing chef Ross Garcia. “We’re not putting a bunch of condiments on it. It’s all about the fresh fish and the smoke.”
The dish would not be possible without Secret Sister, the neighboring bakery opened by the Mabel’s team. Everyday at 3 a.m., the Secret Sister team starts baking country loaves that they bring to Mabel’s around noon. “What’s cool about the mackerel, what makes it so special, is it’s one of the places the country [loaf] gets served fresh and not toasted,” says Neale Holaday, executive pastry chef at Secret Sister. “[The bread] has to be made day of.”
The bread, from first ferment until the moment it is taken out of the oven, takes three days to make. Meanwhile, the fish is undergoing its own multi-day process. The mackerel are filleted, deboned, and cured immediately after they are delivered to Mabel’s, then left in the walk-in fridge to cure in a simple salt and sugar mixture for 24 hours in preparation for smoking. After spending an hour in the smoker, the mackerel is skinned and further cleaned before being placed in an aromatic oil, the last step before the toast is assembled. The fish remains true to itself.
“One of the things that we care about here is making sure that we’re honoring the product,” explains Mabel’s owner Chelsea Coleman. “Not manipulating it too much so that you can still really understand that what you are eating here is extremely fresh delicious fish.”
Watch the latest episode of The Experts to learn about how Mabel’s Gone Fishing, with help from Secret Sister, creates some of the best seafood dishes in San Diego.
