Mackerel, Smelts, Halibut
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Split the mackerel and wash it in salt and water.
Dry the mackerel well.
Fry
Heat a frying pan with rendered suet, butter, or olive oil.
Place the mackerel in the pan and carefully turn it with a flat spatula.
Cook for about 10 minutes, adding a piece of butter on top when serving.
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
What each ingredient does
- Mackerel
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender flesh with a crisp skin.
- Rendered suet or butter or olive oil
- Conducts heat into the fish and adds fat for browning and a rich flavour.
The step that matters
Dry the mackerel well. Surface moisture steams the skin instead of letting it crisp, and water can spatter in hot fat. Patting the fish dry before it meets the pan gives better browning and safer frying.
“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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