Name: Salt Mackerel with Tomato Sauce
Ingredients: 1 whole mackerel, boiled; 2 cups tomatoes, stewed and strained; 1 tablespoon onion juice; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon sugar; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salt Mackerel with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mackerel

Boil the mackerel as usual.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, combine the stewed tomatoes, onion juice, pepper, salt, and sugar.
In a separate pan, make a brown roux by melting the butter and stirring in the flour until browned.
Add the roux to the tomato mixture and stir until thickened.

Serve

Pour the tomato sauce over the boiled mackerel and let it sit for 10 minutes before serving.

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.

Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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: Provides the main protein and the body of the dish, served whole after boiling.
Tomatoes: Supply acidity and body to the sauce, with moisture that carries the other flavors.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and browns with the flour to build a nutty flavor.
Flour: Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the sauce as it cooks.
Sugar: Balances the acidity of the tomatoes with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Browning the roux. Flour and butter must be cooked until browned but not burnt. Underbrowned roux leaves a raw floury taste, while scorched roux turns bitter and dark. Stirring keeps it even, and the roux thickens the sauce when added to the tomatoes.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, sugar, butter, flour):

Chivefits better
Leekfits better
Okrafits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, sugar, butter, flour. 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.

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Cream of Tomato Soup107 recipes

Tomato Bisque61 recipes

Cream Tomato Soup28 recipes

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Salt Mackerel with Tomato Sauce