Name: Spanish Mackerel, Maitre d'Hotel Sauce
Ingredients: 1 Spanish mackerel; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spanish Mackerel, Maitre d'Hotel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the grill to medium-high heat.
Clean and gut the mackerel, then score the skin.
Season the fish with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

Grill the mackerel for about 5-7 minutes on each side until cooked through.
In a small bowl, mix butter, lemon juice, and parsley.
Serve the grilled mackerel topped with the Maitre d'Hôtel sauce.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish mackerel: Provides the main body of the dish, cooking through on the grill to become flaky.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying the flavour of the sauce over the hot fish.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the oily fish.
Parsley: Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a green note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Grilling the mackerel until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and can dry out or stay underdone if left too long or too short. Scoring the skin helps it lie flat and heat evenly, and checking that the flesh flakes ensures it is safely cooked.

“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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Spanish Mackerel, Maitre d'Hotel Sauce