Skip to main content
Main

Pickled Mackerel Called Caveach

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

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

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.

Season and fry

  1. Mix the pepper, nutmegs, mace, cloves, and salt into a fine powder.

  2. Make holes in each piece of fish and thrust the seasoning into them, rubbing each piece with the mixture.

  3. Fry the seasoned fish in oil until brown.

Pickle and store

  1. Let the fish cool, then place them in a stone jar and cover with vinegar.

  2. If storing for a long time, pour oil on top to preserve.

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 and absorbs the seasoning and vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fish and gives it a sharp, pickled flavour.
Black pepper
Adds pungent heat and aroma that penetrates the fish through the cuts.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the seasoning mix.
Cloves
Adds strong aromatic spice that flavours the fish.

The step that matters

Frying until brown. Browning the seasoned fish builds roasted, savoury flavour and firms the flesh so it holds up in the vinegar. Frying too briefly leaves it soft and underseasoned, while overcooking makes it dry and tough.

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.

You might also like

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