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Baked Salt Mackerel

A whole mackerel baked in a lard‑greased pan, served with butter, hard‑boiled eggs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Baked Salt Mackerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Freshen the mackerel by soaking it in water.

  2. Grease a baking pan with lard.

  3. Place the mackerel in the pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes.

  2. Serve on a hot platter with butter, garnished with hard-boiled eggs and parsley.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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
The main dish; its flesh firms and turns opaque as the heat cooks it.
Lard
Greases the pan so the fish does not stick, and adds fat to the surface.
Butter
Melts over the hot fish, adding richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven. A hot oven cooks the fish quickly. The heat must reach the thickest part so the flesh turns opaque and flakes easily. Underbaking leaves the flesh raw near the bone, while overbaking dries it out.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg. 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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