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Broiled Mackerel

A fish fillet seasoned, broiled, and stuffed with butter, parsley, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Broiled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills and insides from the mackerel and wipe it clean and dry.

  2. Open the back of the fish and season with pepper, salt, and a little oil.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the mackerel over a clear fire, turning it on both sides and the back.

  2. Cook for about 10 minutes until the flesh detaches from the bone.

  3. Chop parsley and mix it with butter, pepper, salt, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

  4. Stuff the mixture into the back of the mackerel and serve before the butter melts.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. 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
Forms the main body of the dish, with oily flesh that stays moist when broiled.
Butter
Melts into the fish as it is served, adding richness and moisture to the flesh.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, oily flavour of the mackerel.

The step that matters

Broil until the flesh detaches from the bone. Mackerel is oily and can dry out or stick if overcooked, and the flesh releases cleanly from the bone only once it is properly cooked through. Turning it on both sides and the back helps it cook evenly.

“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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