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To Boil Fresh Mackerel

A boiled fresh mackerel served with parsley and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

To Boil Fresh Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mackerel inside and out.

  2. Wash the fish in a mixture of vinegar and water.

  3. Let the mackerel dry.

  4. Fill a kettle with cold water and add a handful of coarse sea salt.

Boil and serve

  1. Bring the water to a boil and add the mackerel.

  2. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Serve with parsley and butter sauce.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mackerel
The oily flesh is the main dish, turning moist and flaky when cooked in gently boiling water.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce served with the fish.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green aroma to the finished plate.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 to 20 minutes. Fish proteins tighten as they cook, and overcooking squeezes out moisture, leaving the mackerel dry and tough. Checking for doneness near the start of the range helps keep the flesh tender.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter. 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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