Name: Spanish Mackerel Broiled
Ingredients: 1 Spanish mackerel, split and backbone removed; ½ cup cold salted water; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon onion juice or vinegar; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; Optional: 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spanish Mackerel Broiled

Ingredients

1 Spanish mackerel, split and backbone removed
½ cup cold salted water
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon onion juice or vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
Optional: 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions

Prepare

Wash the mackerel in cold salted water and dry it on a clean cloth.
Place the fish between the bars of a buttered double wire gridiron and set it in a dripping pan.

Broil and serve

Prepare a fire and place the dripping pan in front of it to cook the fish.
Melt the butter and mix it with onion juice or vinegar, salt, and pepper.
Baste the fish with the butter mixture while broiling until browned on both sides.
Serve hot with the drippings poured over it.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish mackerel: The main protein, which cooks through and browns on the skin and flesh under direct heat.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the fish brown while basting.
Onion juice or vinegar: Adds a sharp, acidic note that brightens the rich butter basting sauce.

The step that matters

Basting while broiling. Brushing the fish with the butter mixture keeps the surface from drying out under direct heat and promotes even browning on both sides. Basting too little can leave the flesh dry and the skin unevenly coloured.

“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.

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Spanish Pickles58 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

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Spanish Mackerel Broiled