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Broiled Fresh Mackerel

Broiled fresh mackerel seasoned with salt, pepper, oil or butter, served with melted butter, parsley, and lemon juice or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Fresh Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Split the mackerel down the back.

  2. Season it with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Cover it with oil or butter and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the mackerel, pouring any remaining seasoning over it.

  2. Serve with melted butter mixed with parsley and a little lemon juice or vinegar.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 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
Forms the main body of the dish, with rich oily flesh that stays moist under high heat.
Oil or butter
Coats the fish during marinating and helps it brown under the broiler.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce served with the fish.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, oily flavour of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Broiling the mackerel. Mackerel is thin and oily, so it cooks fast under intense top heat. Watch it closely, since the surface can char before the thickest part is cooked through.

“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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