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Pickled Mackerel

A preserved mackerel cured with salt, spices, and vinegar, baked in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the mackerel into 3 parts: heads, tails, and fins.

  2. Place the fish into 2 one-gallon jars.

  3. Add salt, allspice, cloves, and pepper to the jars. Mix the ingredients.

  4. Roll the fish in the mixture.

Pack and bake

  1. Fill the jars within 1 inch of the top with vinegar.

  2. Cover each jar with thick brown paper. Grease the paper well.

  3. Place the jars in a 300°F oven for 9 hours.

  4. Add more vinegar if it cooks away.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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
Is the main food being preserved, becoming tender and flaky during the long slow cook.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the fish and seasons it, helping preserve the flesh.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the fish and keeps it moist as the jars cook.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic flavour that penetrates the fish.

The step that matters

Keeping the jars topped up with vinegar. If the vinegar cooks away during the long bake, the fish is exposed to air and can dry out or spoil. Keeping the fish fully covered by the acidic liquid maintains preservation and moisture.

“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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