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Broiled Spanish Mackerel

A whole Spanish mackerel grilled and served with melted butter and sliced lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Broiled Spanish Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the fish down the back and remove the backbone.

  2. Wash the fish and dry it well with a towel.

  3. Sprinkle coarse sea salt on the fish.

Grill and serve

  1. Place the fish on a grill over a clear fire, flesh side down, until browned.

  2. Turn the fish over and cook until done.

  3. Serve with melted butter and sliced lemon.

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 + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Spanish mackerel + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  3. Spanish mackerel + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish mackerel
Provides the main flesh that cooks through over the fire and forms the dish.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the flesh and draws out surface moisture, helping it brown well on the grill.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness that carries flavor and keeps the cooked flesh moist.
Sliced lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, oily flavor of the fish.

The step that matters

Drying the fish before salting and grilling. Surface moisture steams the skin instead of letting it brown, and water on the grill causes sticking and flare-ups. Patting the fish fully dry before salting helps it sear and release cleanly.

“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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