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Broiled Mackerel

Broiled mackerel seasoned with pepper, salt, oil, and served with melted Maitre d'Hotel butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the tail and fins of the mackerel, remove the gills and insides, and wipe it clean without washing.

  2. Split the back of the fish lengthwise to the bone, place it on a dish, and season with pepper, salt, and oil.

Broil and serve

  1. Grill the mackerel over a brisk fire for 6 minutes on each side and 4 minutes on the open back.

  2. Place the melted Maitre d'Hotel butter on the back and serve on a hot dish.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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 carries the flavour of the fish itself.
Maitre d'hotel butter
Melts over the hot fish, adding richness and moisture to the surface.
Oil
Coats the flesh so it browns evenly and does not dry out under heat.

The step that matters

Grilling over a brisk fire. A brisk, hot fire sears the skin and surface quickly, helping the flesh brown and stay moist. Too low a heat dries the fish before it cooks through.

“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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