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Broiled Mackerel

A simple broiled mackerel seasoned with salt, pepper, parsley, wrapped in buttered paper and grilled until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the grill.

  2. Sprinkle the mackerel with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

  3. Wrap the fish in buttered paper.

Grill and serve

  1. Place the wrapped fish on the grill over a good fire.

  2. Turn the fish two or three times until cooked through.

  3. Remove the paper and serve warm or cold with caper or tomato 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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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 into flaky, tender flesh.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness while the paper-wrapped fish steams gently on the grill.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma to the seasoned fish.

The step that matters

Turn the fish two or three times. Turning exposes the fish to heat from both sides so it cooks through evenly, while frequent handling over a hot fire can cause the outside to dry or char before the centre sets.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, butter, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, butter, lemon. 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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