Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Stuffed Mackerel

A whole mackerel stuffed with butter, breadcrumbs, chives, shallots, lemon juice, and salt, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Broiled Stuffed Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mackerel by drawing it and wiping it dry.

Stuff and cook

  1. In a bowl, mix cold butter, bread crumbs, chives, shallots, lemon juice, and salt to create the stuffing.

  2. Stuff the mackerel with the mixture.

  3. Broil the stuffed mackerel until cooked through, about 10-15 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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Chive + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + shallottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing while it cooks.
Cold butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing, melting slowly as the fish heats.
Bread crumbs
Soak up melted butter and juices, giving the stuffing body and a slightly crisp texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and butter.

The step that matters

Broil the stuffed mackerel until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and can dry out or stay underdone at the thickest point. Checking that the flesh is opaque and flakes easily near the bone helps ensure it is fully cooked without overdrying.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Pumpkinfits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, chive, shallot. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes