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Salt Mackerel Broiled

Broiled mackerel served with butter, lemon juice, and minced parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Salt Mackerel Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and broil

  1. Soak the mackerel in cold water for two days, changing the water two or three times.

  2. Wipe the fish dry, then broil the mackerel over a clear fire.

Serve

  1. Place the fish on a hot dish and pour 1 pint of boiling water over it.

  2. Let it stand for 1 minute, then pour off the water.

  3. Add butter, lemon juice, and minced parsley on top of the fish, and serve.

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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
The fish is the main component, cooking to tender, flaky flesh under the broiler.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and melts over the hot fish to moisten it.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Broil the mackerel over a clear fire. Broiling needs steady, flame-free heat so the fish cooks through and browns evenly. Flames or excess heat can char the skin before the flesh is cooked.

“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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