Skip to main content
Main

Potted Mackerel

A preserved mackerel dish seasoned with spices and cold vinegar, left to mature for 24 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Potted Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the fish

  1. Wash the mackerel pieces well and place them in a stone jar, uncorked.

  2. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt, whole peppercorns, whole cloves, whole allspice, a blade of mace, and a small stick of cinnamon over the first layer of fish.

  3. Add another layer of fish and repeat the seasoning until all fish is used.

Pickle

  1. Cover the fish with cold vinegar and seal the jar tightly.

  2. Place the jar in a cool area where it will gradually heat up.

  3. Let it stand for twenty-four hours without boiling.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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, becoming firm and tender as the vinegar works on it.
Cold vinegar
Its acidity firms the fish flesh and gives the dish its sharp, preserved tang.
Whole allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that soak into the fish as it stands.

The step that matters

Let it stand without boiling. Heat would cook the fish and toughen and break up its flesh while the vinegar is already firming it. Keeping the jar cool lets the acid penetrate gently and keeps the texture even.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, cinnamon, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes