Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Salt Mackerel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the mackerel in ice water overnight, skin side up, to allow salt to drop out.
Cut off the head and tail of the fish before cooking.
Cook and serve
Place the fish on a pan under the broiler until thoroughly brown and well done.
Serve on a platter and dress with melted butter.
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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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Norway mackerel
- Forms the main body of the dish and is the protein being cooked and served.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and fat to the finished fish as a dressing.
The step that matters
Soaking the mackerel overnight in ice water. Soaking draws out excess salt from the cured fish. Skipping or shortening the soak leaves the fish too salty, since salt slowly diffuses out of the flesh into the cold water.
“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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