Our Mackerels

Our tinned mackerel: a tasty, healthy treat! 

With la belle-iloise tinned mackerel you have the guarantee of 90 years of traditional, small-scale production in Quiberon and an innovative, tasty recipe using some unexpected flavours. From season to season, we seek out the best ways to celebrate the nutritional benefits of this invaluable fish.

The mackerel are fished as close as possible to our facilities, prepared fresh and cooked in a court-bouillon. Hand trimmed and tinned with the utmost care, our fillets offer extraordinary finesse and lightness. From the four great classics (mackerel fillets with mustard, tomato, olive oil, lemon and 5 peppercorns, and white wine with aromatic flavourings) to our more adventurous recipes (curry, red chilli), not forgetting the oil-free version, all of our mackerel fillets have wonderful flavours to tempt your tastebuds.

As for our mackerel crumbles, each one is inspired by the culinary universe of a particular region, offering sweet escapes through taste. Crossing over to the West Indies with the Boucaniers recipe, lazing around in Provence the Escartefigue way, or turning back north with a white beer? Or would you prefer a stay on the Riviera, with a view of the lemons of Menton, or a stroll in the heart of Argoat, in the Breton hinterland? Not forgetting the most exotic excursion, sprinkled with seeds of paradise, which takes us off the coast of Africa.

Ready to enjoy, our tinned mackerel can also be used as a base for cooking. For example, our Mackerel fillets with curry and almonds are delicious mixed with rice that is spiced and heated, a secret revealed by Caroline Hilliet-Le Branchu, our CEO. As for the crumbles, they are very useful for concocting refreshing summer salads in no time at all. To make the most of the variety of flavours we've come up with, we recommend you choose the 'assortment' formats combining the different recipes for mackerel fillets and crumbles.

As an aperitif, our mackerel spreads offer healthy pleasures for maximum conviviality: Rillettes de maquereau aux algues de Bretagne, Tartinable de maquereau au citron vert, or Concassé d'artichaut au maquereau, are recipes specially developed to delight guests and get the evening off to a good start.

Fancy a picnic or need something to eat on your lunch break? Our Mackerel and Artichoke Hearts Sandwich Mix, our Ready-to-Eat Mackerel and Beluga Lentil Salad and our Mackerel Chili, a delicious hot dish, will delight you.

Last but not least, our Histoire de maquereaux boxed set brings together a best-of selection of all these delicacies in a splendid box designed by Olivier Lapicque, an artist from Concarneau, to give as a stylish gift!

For some, mackerel has a bad reputation, but for others, it's an exceptional fish! Like Alexandre Dumas, who described mackerel in his Grand dictionnaire de cuisine as "one of the most beautiful and courageous fish in existence". He goes on to say: "When it passes alive from the line to the boat, it seems to be made of azure, silver and gold".

The mackerel (Scomber scombrus), also known as the "tiger of the seas", is a silvery fish with black stripes, a white belly and a blue-green back. It is elongated and measures between 20 and 40 centimetres, weighing between 200 and 700g.

Its powerful tail fin and aerodynamic shape make it a tireless swimmer. The mackerel never stops swimming: lacking a swim bladder, it has to be in perpetual motion to avoid sinking. And the older they get, the faster they swim: up to 32 km/h at the peak of maturity!

Mackerel feed mainly on plankton, but during the breeding season they also eat molluscs, small crustaceans and small fish. An avid migrant, mackerel travel in shoals in the North Atlantic, along the American and European coasts, as well as in the Black and Mediterranean Seas.

At la belle-iloise, all our mackerel are caught in the north-east Atlantic, from the Celtic Sea to the North Sea. And thanks to our exacting standards and expertise, our tinned mackerel retain all the qualities of their proteins and the goodness of their flesh.

Keeping its nutritional values intact, tinned mackerel is a concentrate of complete proteins, vitamins and minerals, as well as a champion of omega-3s. 100g of mackerel provides 6 times the recommended intake of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), and 3 times that of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid)! Assimilable only through food, these two nutrients, which are essential and beneficial at all ages, are precious fatty acids.

In terms of vitamins, 100g of mackerel provides 3 times the recommended intake of vitamin B12, 100% of vitamin D and 41% of vitamin B3. They stimulate energy metabolism and the immune system, as well as all physiological and psychological functions. Finally, mackerel provides a good dose of iodine, phosphorus and selenium, marine minerals that are all antioxidants for maintaining extra health on a daily basis.