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Pickled Mackerel, Called Caveach

A pickled mackerel dish seasoned with pepper, nutmegs, mace, cloves, and salt, then fried and preserved in vinegar and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Mackerel, Called Caveach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and divide the mackerel, cutting each side into three or five pieces.

  2. Mix the pepper, nutmegs, mace, cloves, and salt in a fine powder.

Season and fry

  1. Make holes in each piece of fish, then thrust the seasoning into the holes.

  2. Rub each piece with the mixture.

  3. Fry the seasoned fish in oil until brown.

  4. Let the fish cool.

Pickle and preserve

  1. Place the cooled fish in a stone jar and cover with vinegar.

  2. Pour oil on top for long-term preservation.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 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, becoming firm and flaky when fried and pickled.
Vinegar
Acidifies the fish, preserving it and giving it a sharp, tangy flavour.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that carries through the spiced fish.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the seasoning rub.
Sea salt
Draws moisture out of the fish and seasons it throughout.

The step that matters

Fry the seasoned fish until brown. Frying sets the outer surface and drives off moisture before pickling. Undercooked fish stays soft and may not hold up in the vinegar, so the fish should be properly browned before it cools and is covered.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, clove, 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.

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