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Spanish Mackerel

Grilled Spanish mackerel served whole with lemon, parsley, and a maître d'hôtel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

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

  1. Preheat the grill.

  2. If the fish is large, split it down the middle of the back.

Cook

  1. Brush the fish with olive oil and melted butter.

  2. Broil the fish until cooked through, about 10-15 minutes, turning once.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish whole on a dish garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

  2. Drizzle with lemon juice and serve with Sauce à la Maitre d'Hôtel.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  4. Spanish mackerel + saucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Spanish mackerel
Provides the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, moist flesh under heat.
Olive oil
Adds moisture and helps the surface brown and not stick under the grill.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour while helping the skin brown under the grill.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, oily flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Broil the fish until cooked through, about 10-15 minutes, turning once.. Oily fish like mackerel dries out quickly under direct high heat, so the timing and single turn matter. Thickness varies, so check that the flesh is opaque and flakes easily at the thickest point rather than relying on time alone.

“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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