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Salt Mackerel

A boiled mackerel served with a butter and cream sauce, garnished with lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Freshen the mackerel by soaking it skin side up in a stone crock of water overnight. Change the water before bedtime and rinse in the morning.

  2. Boil the mackerel in a frying pan for about 5 minutes.

  3. Transfer the mackerel to a platter.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a basin, heat the cream or milk with the butter and pour it over the mackerel.

  2. Serve with drawn butter and lemon slices.

Alternative method

  1. For an alternative method, after freshening, hang the mackerel to dry for 1-2 days.

  2. Place the dried mackerel in a dry tin and set it in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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; freshening in water softens its concentrated salt before cooking.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and richness, softening the saltiness and giving the fish a smooth coating.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the warm sauce poured over the fish.

The step that matters

Freshening the mackerel overnight. Salted fish holds a lot of salt, and soaking draws it out gradually. Changing the water keeps the salt gradient steep, so the fish ends up seasoned but not harsh.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cream, butter. 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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