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Fried Salt Mackerel

Fried salt mackerel coated in flour and fried in butter, served with melted butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mackerel

  1. Wash and cleanse the salt mackerel well.

  2. Soak the mackerel in cold water all day, changing the water every two hours.

  3. Just before bedtime, place the mackerel in fresh water.

  4. In the morning, drain the water and wipe the mackerel dry.

Fry and serve

  1. Roll the mackerel in flour.

  2. Fry the mackerel in a little butter in a hot, thick-bottomed frying pan.

  3. Serve with melted butter poured over and garnish with parsley.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt mackerel
Main fish; soaking removes excess salt so the flesh can be eaten.
Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the surface brown and crisp when fried.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds browning and a rich flavour, and is poured over to finish.

The step that matters

Frying in a hot, thick-bottomed pan. A hot pan sears the floured surface quickly, creating a crisp crust before the fish dries out. A thick base holds heat steady so the pan does not cool when the fish goes in.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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