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Scalloped Mackerel with Tomato

A baked mackerel dish layered with bread crumbs and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Scalloped Mackerel with Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish and tomato

  1. Freshen the mackerel by soaking it in water to cover, flesh-side down, on a rack for 18 to 24 hours.

  2. Cook the tomatoes, bay leaf, mace, onion, and cloves for 20 minutes. Add baking soda to the cooked mixture. Strain the mixture.

  3. Remove bones and skin from the mackerel. Break the fish into bits.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Cook the cornstarch in the melted butter.

  2. Gradually add the strained tomato pulp until it thickens.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a baking dish.

  2. Layer bread crumbs, mackerel, and repeat until all fish is used. Pour the tomato mixture over the layers. Top with bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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, providing the fish layers and its flavour.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and moisture, forming the base of the sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the strained tomato liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the cornstarch cook into the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Add structure between the layers and browning on the top crust.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with cornstarch. Cornstarch must be cooked in the melted butter and the tomato added gradually, so the starch granules swell evenly. Adding liquid too fast can leave lumps and a thin, uneven sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, clove, butter, bread):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, clove, butter, bread. 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.

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