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Broiled Salt Mackerel

A broiled fish dish made from salted mackerel, butter, lemon, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Broiled Salt Mackerel

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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt mackerel in water for a few hours to remove excess salt.

  2. Preheat the broiler.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the mackerel on a broiler pan and brush with melted butter.

  2. Broil for about 5-7 minutes on each side until cooked through.

  3. Serve with lemon wedges.

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. 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

Salt mackerel
Is the main protein; soaking it beforehand draws out surface and excess salt.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish surface while it broils.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, salty fish.

The step that matters

Broil each side until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly under high direct heat and dries out if left too long, so timing each side matters for a moist, flaky result.

“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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