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To Broil Mackerel Whole

A whole mackerel stuffed with a roe and herb mixture, then broiled and served with butter and ketchup or walnut pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Broil Mackerel Whole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Gut and wash the mackerel clean.

  2. Remove the roe from the neck end and boil it, then bruise the boiled roe with a spoon.

  3. In a bowl, mix the roe, egg yolk, nutmeg, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, pepper, salt, and bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fill the mackerel with the mixture and dust it with flour.

  2. Broil the mackerel until cooked through.

  3. Serve with melted butter and a drizzle of ketchup or walnut pickle.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 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 filling, cooking to a flaky texture under the broiler.
Egg yolk
Binds the filling so it holds together when the fish is stuffed and broiled.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and adds body to the filling, helping it stay in place.
Flour
Dusted on the fish to help the surface brown and form a light crust under heat.

The step that matters

Broil the mackerel until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry or tough if overcooked, while undercooked fish is unsafe. The filling must also reach a safe, set state, so checking doneness at the thickest part matters.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, bread, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, bread, flour. 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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