Why it works: Sauce and whiting match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Broiled Salt Mackerel
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the mackerel overnight in a large pan of water, skin side up.
In the morning, remove from water, dry carefully, and trim off the head, fins, and tail.
Cut the fish in half and rub off the skin with a coarse towel.
Rub the bars of the gridiron with a little whiting to prevent sticking.
Prepare the butter sauce before broiling the fish.
Just before broiling, throw a handful of salt over the coals to moderate the fire and reduce smoke.
Watch the fish while broiling to prevent scorching.
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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Sauce + whitingtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together236 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + whitingtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together510 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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