Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓
Boiled Salt Mackerel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the mackerel overnight in cold water.
Boil
Place the mackerel in a skillet with 1 quart of hot water and bring to a boil.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Serve
Transfer to a hot dish, pour melted butter over it, and garnish with parsley.
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.
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Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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; its flesh cooks through and firms in the hot water.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the fish when poured over it at serving.
The step that matters
Boil for 10 minutes. Boiling at a steady simmer cooks the fish through gently; too vigorous a boil can break up the flesh and make it dry and tough, so timing and heat control matter.
“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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