Set an overhead oven grill to hot. Take a couple of whole mackerel, gutted and cleaned, but otherwise intact, and score through the skin and almost down to the bone. Make four or five slashes, depending on the size of your fish, 2 or 3cm apart. Lay the fish on a foil-lined grill pan. Leave plenty of space between them.
Mix together 3 tbsp of olive oil and 2 tbsp of ground sumac. Season lightly with salt. Spoon the dressing over the fish, letting it trickle down into the flesh through the score lines.
Place the fish under the grill, about 20cm from the heat, and leave to cook for about 8 minutes, watching carefully.
Remove the peel and white pith from 2 oranges with a very sharp knife and slice the fruit thinly. Slice open a pomegranate and pull out the seeds, then toss them with the slices of orange and their juice. Tear 20 small mint leaves to pieces – or chop them roughly – then fold them through the fruit.
When the mackerel is cooked, its skin a mixture of shining silver, burnished gold and black bits caught in the heat, remove it and serve with the orange and pomegranate salad. Serves 2.
If you have time, let the mackerel sit for a while in the sumac dressing before you grill it. Keep an eye on the fish’s progress, basting it from time to time with any dressing that may trickle off the fish as it cooks. Be brave, let the skin blacken in places. The reward is deliciously smoky flesh.
You could cook the fish in fillets rather than whole. Cook them skin side up and brush regularly with the dressing as they cook. If the piquant flavour of ground sumac isn’t your thing, then it’s worth trying za’atar instead.
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