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Baked Mackerel

Baked mackerel topped with a cream and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Mackerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grease a baking tin with lard.

  3. Place the dressed mackerel in the tin.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream, flour, and butter; heat until thickened.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the fish in the hot oven until browned.

  2. Pour the cream mixture over the baked mackerel.

  3. Return to the oven for 5 to 10 minutes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks through to flaky, browned flesh.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming a smooth sauce over the fish.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it clings to the fish rather than running off.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the sauce and helps it thicken smoothly.

The step that matters

Heating the cream mixture until thickened. Flour needs to be heated fully in the fat and liquid to swell and thicken the sauce. Undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin sauce.

“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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