Greek baked mackerel (Kolios) with olive oil, lemon and parsley

Ψητοί κολιοί με ελαιόλαδο, μαϊντανό και λεμόνι

Jan 22, 2025

∙ Paid

I love fish. I could eat fish every day of the week and not get tired of it one bit. And cooking it is so easy, so fast, it’s a shame not too many people choose to eat fish more often.

Especially in the summer when temperatures flare up, you want to cook something requiring minimal effort. Something that can benefit just from a bit of good olive oil, lemon juice, fresh aromatics and seasoning.

That is fish for you, and if you are fortunate enough to have a good fishmonger, sometimes you don’t even need to cook it at all. Salmon/mackerel/sea bass tartare anyone?

Next to salads and the occasional barbecue, fish makes the best summertime dinner for me. I particularly enjoy baked or grilled whole bream, fried red mullet and mackerel; here in the Netherlands it’s the North Sea mackerel, when I’m in Greece it’s of course the Mediterranean mackerel (kolios / κολιός).

The fish pictured in this post were cooked by my mom when I was in Greece in May and it’s small Mediterranean mackerel.

They’re nutritious, healthy, chock-full of omega 3 fatty acids—the good fat—and flavorful beyond description. Not particularly subtle, their flavor is not mellow but rather pungent, oily, fresh, fatty, almost meaty. They are unique and utterly scrumptious.

I always cook mackerel simple like this, seasoned with salt and pepper, a good drizzle of olive oil, some fresh parsley and lemon, and they never, ever fail to satisfy my appetite.

See also: Greek fried whitebait and Greek fried red mullet