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Boiled Salt Mackerel

A boiled mackerel soaked to remove salt, served with butter sauce and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the fish

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight to remove the salt.

  2. Boil the mackerel wrapped in a napkin in clear water.

  3. Drain the mackerel and place it on a dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Garnish with parsley.

  2. Melt butter to make a sauce.

  3. Serve the sauce with boiled potatoes.

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. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Salt-cured fish that is soaked to reduce salt, then gently boiled until cooked through.
Butter
Melted to make a rich sauce that adds fat and smooth flavour to the fish and potatoes.
Boiled potatoes
Starchy side that soaks up the butter sauce and balances the salty richness of the fish.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt mackerel overnight. Salt-cured fish must be soaked long enough to draw out surplus salt. Too little soaking leaves the fish harsh and overly salty, while the boiling step cannot correct it.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, potato. 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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