Skip to main content
Main

Balced or Pickled Mackerel

A preserved mackerel cured with pepper, salt, allspice, vinegar, and water, baked and wrapped in paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Balced or Pickled Mackerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the heads from the mackerel and open the fish.

  2. Take out the roes and clean them thoroughly.

  3. Rub the inside of the fish with pepper, coarse sea salt, and allspice, then replace the roes.

Pickle and bake

  1. Pack the fish tightly in a deep baking pan.

  2. Cover with equal parts of cold vinegar and water, and add the bay leaves.

  3. Tie over with strong white paper, doubled or thicker.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

  5. Serve hot or let cool; they will keep for ten days to a fortnight.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and flaky when baked slowly.
Cold vinegar
Acidity that pickles the fish and helps it keep for days.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and draws out moisture to firm its flesh.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the fish.
Bay leaves
Adds a subtle herbal aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Covering the pan tightly with paper. A well-sealed cover traps steam and keeps the fish moist during the slow bake, so the flesh does not dry out before the pickle has penetrated.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes