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Maquereau a LA Maitre D'hotel

A seasoned mackerel fillet stuffed with herbs, butter, and consommé, then broiled and served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,118 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Split the mackerel along both sides of the backbone.

  2. Season each side with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Stuff the back of the mackerel with the herb mixture.

Make the herb mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine shallots, parsley, fennel, butter, and nutmeg.

  2. Cook the herb mixture over low heat for a few minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Rub the skin of the mackerel with a little butter.

  2. Broil the mackerel.

  3. Add consommé to the remaining herbs.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Stir in anchovy essence.

  6. Place the fish on a serving dish.

  7. Pour the sauce over the fish, or serve the sauce separately.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + fenneltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,718 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Fennel + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
The main protein; splitting and stuffing it lets the herbs flavour the flesh during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the herb flavours and helping the skin brown under the heat.
Shallots
Provide a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the herb mixture once softened.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green herbal aroma that defines the maître d'hôtel style.
Consommé
A clear, savoury stock that forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic note that complements the butter and herbs.

The step that matters

Broil the mackerel. Mackerel is oily and dries out or overcooks quickly under direct heat, so watch it closely while the skin browns and the flesh turns opaque.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, fennel, butter, nutmeg, anchovy):

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, fennel, butter, nutmeg, anchovy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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