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Broiled Spanish Mackerel

Broiled Spanish mackerel seasoned with coarse sea salt, butter, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Spanish Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Split the fish down the back and remove the backbone.

  2. Wash the fish in cold water and dry it with a clean cloth.

  3. Sprinkle the fish lightly with coarse sea salt.

Broil and serve

  1. Lay the fish on a buttered grill, flesh side down, over a clear fire until it begins to brown.

  2. Turn the fish to cook the other side.

  3. Mix melted butter, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  4. Serve the fish hot on a warm dish, pouring the mixture over it.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Spanish mackerel + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  5. Spanish mackerel + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish mackerel
Oily flesh that stays moist and rich during direct high heat cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and its milk solids help the surface brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and butter sauce.

The step that matters

Lay the fish flesh side down on the buttered grill over a clear fire. Fish is delicate and sticks easily, and the grill must be hot and clean with butter on it. Starting flesh side down lets the surface set and brown so the fish releases cleanly when turned.

“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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