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Salt Mackerel

Salted mackerel prepared by soaking, boiling, buttering, and briefly baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight in milk or water.

  2. Place the mackerel in a frying pan and cover with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook for five minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer to a warm dish and place bits of butter on top.

  2. Set in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for a few minutes before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
Provides the main protein and flavour of the dish.
Milk or water
Soaking liquid that draws out salt and softens the flesh.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, melting over the fish for moisture and flavour.

The step that matters

Soak the mackerel overnight in milk or water. Soaking draws out excess salt from the cured fish, so the final dish is not overly salty. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the fish too salty to enjoy.

“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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