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Creamed Mackerel

A cooked mackerel served in a thickened butter and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mackerel

  1. Wash the salt mackerel and soak it in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, dry the mackerel thoroughly with a clean towel.

  3. Place the mackerel in a bread pan of boiling water and cook for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain the mackerel and transfer it to a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, stir the cornstarch into 1 cup of boiling water.

  2. Add the butter, vinegar (or minced pickle), and pepper to the cornstarch mixture.

  3. Stir over heat until the sauce is smooth and thick like custard.

  4. If desired, add minced parsley to the sauce.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fish, cover, and let it stand in a warm place for 5 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salt mackerel
The main fish, which is soaked to remove salt and then gently cooked until tender.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling water into a smooth, custard-like sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Vinegar or minced green pickle
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce and balances the fish.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch sauce over heat. Cornstarch thickens only when heated to a boil and stirred, and the starch granules swell and gelatinize. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin, while stopping to rest or letting it sit unstirred can cause lumps to form.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

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