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Fresh Mackerel

A grilled fresh mackerel served with melted butter or drippings and optional olive oil, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,649 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fresh Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the grill.

  2. Grease the grill bars.

Cook and serve

  1. Rub the mackerel with melted butter, drippings, or olive oil.

  2. Place the mackerel on the grill and broil until cooked through.

  3. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 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
Is the main protein; cooks through under direct heat, becoming firm and flaky.
Melted butter or drippings
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the surface brown while grilling.

The step that matters

Grease the grill bars. Oiling the bars before the fish goes on keeps the skin from sticking and tearing when it is turned. Fish is delicate, so a clean, oiled surface matters.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, olive):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, olive. 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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