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Broiled Mackerel

Broiled mackerel seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, fennel, parsley, and served with fennel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Broiled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut a slit in the back of the mackerel for even cooking.

  2. Grease the bars of a grill and place the mackerel over a clear, slow fire.

  3. Sprinkle coarse sea salt and black pepper over the fish.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until thoroughly done on both sides.

  2. Transfer to a hot dish and rub butter over the fish.

  3. Stuff the fish with chopped fennel and parsley, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a bit of butter.

  4. Serve with fennel sauce, parsley, and butter.

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. Fennel + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Pepper + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, cooked through by grilling over a slow fire.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish as it is rubbed on and used in the stuffing.
Fennel
Adds a light aniseed aroma to the stuffing and the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until thoroughly done on both sides. Mackerel is an oily fish that can dry out or stay underdone at the thick parts. Grilling over a slow, steady fire and checking both sides helps it cook evenly through without scorching the skin.

Swap the fennel

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, parsley, sauce. 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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