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Baked Salt Mackerel

A baked fish dish made from soaked salt mackerel, butter, cream, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight.

  2. Place the mackerel in a pan and cover with boiling water.

  3. Let stand for 2 minutes.

  4. Drain the water.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mackerel in a baking pan with a few lumps of butter.

  2. Pour on ½ cup of sweet cream or rich milk.

  3. Add a little pepper.

  4. Bake in the oven until browned.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Salt mackerel
Soaking removes excess salt, leaving the fish mild enough to eat.
Butter
Melts over the fish, adding richness and helping it brown in the oven.
Sweet cream or rich milk
Adds fat and moisture that keep the fish tender while it bakes.

The step that matters

Drain the water after the brief boil. Excess water left in the pan would dilute the cream and keep the fish from browning, so draining well matters before baking.

“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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