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Baked Mackerel with Cream

Baked mackerel finished with heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Mackerel with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the mackerel in a baking pan.

  3. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and dredge lightly with flour.

  4. Add ¼ cup of water to the pan.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until nearly done.

  2. Pour 1 cup of heavy cream over the mackerel.

  3. Return to the oven and bake until the cream is nearly absorbed.

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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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, cooking through as the centrepiece.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and fat, and thickens slightly as it reduces in the oven.
Flour
Light coating that helps the surface brown and gives a little texture.

The step that matters

Return to the oven and bake until the cream is nearly absorbed. Cream can split or scorch if overheated, and stopping at nearly absorbed keeps it glossy and clinging to the fish rather than dry or oily.

“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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