Smoky mackerel spread

Age group:: 4-5 years
Food group:: Meat, fish, eggs, beans

This quick and simple recipe will help 4-5-year-olds hone their mashing skills by getting them to mix up the ingredients into a tasty spread. They will get hands-on breaking up the mackerel, but will need supervision to make sure all of the small bones are removed.

This toolkit contains a recipe, along with ideas about how you could include it in your lesson. Take a look at the recipe below and refer to it alongside the teaching resources.

The cooking skills and recipes have been developed in collaboration with the British Nutritional Foundation.

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Available Teaching materials

Expressive arts and design

Ask the children to design their own rainbow fish on a fish template. Provide different materials for them to cut and stick, including some sparkles.
The rainbow fish is ‘every shade of blue, green and purple’. Allow the children to make different shades of these colours using different types of materials including paints, crayons and chalks.
- Ask how they can make the shade lighter. [by adding white]
- Cut out scale shapes from the children’s colours and put them together to make a large rainbow fish of all different shades.
Create a rainbow fish using filter paper.
- Use marker pens / felt tips and scribble different colours on to the filter paper. It does not have to be done at all neatly!
- Spray the filter paper with some water. The colours will mingle.
- Allow these to dry and then cut out a fish shape. Add details such as a googly eye and some sparkly scales made from silver or shiny paper.
Create beautiful pictures of the rainbow fish or an underwater scene using wax batik.
- You will need: 1 piece of cotton per child, paper, cold wax for batiks, paintbrushes and batik inks.
- Tape a piece of white cotton (whatever size you like; A4 works well) with a piece of paper underneath it on to a table. (The paper prevents the ink from getting on to the table when the children are painting with it.)
- Ask the children to design their picture on a piece of paper first to copy on to the cotton. Bolder designs are better as small details are more difficult to manage when applying the wax. (A rainbow fish is ideal.)
- When the children are happy with their design, ask them to draw it lightly on the cotton. (This is easier if the cotton is stretched out and taped down.)
- Ask the children to paint the cold wax over the pencil outlines of their design with a paintbrush.
- Allow these to dry and iron over them.
- Give the children two or four different-coloured inks.
- Ask them to paint the ink within the wax outlines. (Explain that It doesn’t matter if they get ink on the outlines.) The ink can be watered down, or the children can lighten the ink by painting on top of it with water. The colours may run into each other, also creating a watery effect.
- The wax resists the ink and creates a white outline that looks very effective and produces a special and lasting piece of artwork.
Hang the various rainbow fish that the children have made to from wire hangers to create fish mobiles or a gallery of beautiful artwork.
- Consider inviting an audience in to appreciate the gallery and to leave comments in a book which can be shared later.
Create an underwater 3D scene in a box.
Create an under-sea world role-play area.
Learn the traditional English folk song ‘When the Boat comes In’ and/or any other song or rhyme that is connected with this theme.
- Learn the songs with the children and enjoy rehearsing them.
- Decide if the learning is for the class only or whether they will perform it for others.
- Revisit what is important about performance, including speaking clearly, looking up and out and smiling.
- Ask the children if actions or sound effects are required to enhance the performance.

Equipment

Juicer
Bowl
Kitchen scissors
Measuring spoons
Fork
Spoon

Steps

Step 1

Juice the lime or lemon.
Step 2

Break the mackerel into small pieces and place it in the bowl, removing any bones. ADULT SUPPORT.
Step 3

Snip the chives. ADULT SUPPORT.
Step 4

Add the sour cream and juice.
Step 5

Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly.
Step 6

Serve.