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Broiled Salt Mackerel

Broiled salt mackerel served with melted butter and cream, topped with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Broiled Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight.

  2. Drain well and wipe dry.

  3. Broil the mackerel over a clear fire.

  4. Place the mackerel on a platter.

  5. Pour boiling water over it for 1–2 minutes. Discard the water.

Finish and serve

  1. Melt 1 teaspoon of butter in ½ cup of hot cream.

  2. Pour the mixture over the fish.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped parsley 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + parsleytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,392 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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; salting and soaking control how much salt remains in the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Hot cream
Forms a rich, warm sauce that softens the saltiness of the fish and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Soaking and draining the mackerel. Salted fish is very salty, so soaking it long enough draws out salt, and draining and drying it well keeps the surface from steaming instead of browning under the broiler.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Macefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream. 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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