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Broiled Mackerel

Broiled mackerel seasoned with salt, pepper, and oil, grilled and finished 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 tails and fins, remove the gills and insides, and wipe the fish clean without washing.

  2. Split the back of the mackerel lengthwise to the bone.

  3. Place the fish on a dish and season with pepper, salt, and oil.

Cook and serve

  1. Grill the mackerel over a brisk fire for 5 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
Is the main protein, cooking to flaky, tender flesh under direct heat.
Maitre d’hotel butter
Melts over the hot fish, adding richness and moisture to the cooked surface.
Oil
Coats the fish to help the skin brown and prevents it from sticking to the grill.

The step that matters

Grill over a brisk fire. The fish must be exposed to high, steady heat so the skin crisps and the flesh cooks through before it dries out. Too low a heat steams the fish and leaves it pale and soft.

“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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