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Mackerel, Fricasseed

A mackerel dish simmered in a brown gravy with parsley, shallot, butter, anchovy essence, ketchup, flour, port wine, mustard, and Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mackerel, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. Pound the chopped parsley with the shallot, butter, anchovy essence, ketchup, and flour.

  2. Gradually stir this mixture into the brown gravy until it almost boils.

  3. Add the port wine and the mackerel fillets, then stew for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the fillets and place them on a hot dish.

  2. Stir in the French mustard and additional ketchup into the gravy, and pour it over the fillets when just boiling.

  3. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and shallot mixture so it binds into the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the anchovy and parsley flavours through the sauce.
Mackerel fillets
Provide the main fish and firm flesh that holds up during stewing.
Brown gravy
Forms the savoury base of the sauce that the fillets are cooked in.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce as it stews.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the flour mixture into the gravy. Adding the flour-butter paste slowly and stirring constantly keeps starch from clumping, so the sauce thickens smoothly rather than turning lumpy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, shallot, butter, anchovy, ketchup, flour, port wine):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, shallot, butter, anchovy, ketchup, flour, port wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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