Name: Broiled Spanish Mackerel
Ingredients: 1 Spanish mackerel; coarse sea salt; butter (for greasing); 2 tablespoons butter, melted; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 teaspoon salt; pepper to taste

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Spanish Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Split the fish down the back and remove the backbone.
Wash the fish in cold water and dry it with a clean cloth.
Sprinkle the fish lightly with coarse sea salt.

Broil

Place the fish on a buttered grill with the flesh side down over a clear fire.
Cook until it begins to brown, then turn it over.

Serve

Mix melted butter, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a bowl.
Serve the fish hot on a warm dish, pouring the mixture over it.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Spanish mackerel + lemontop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together32 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).
Spanish mackerel + buttertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together34 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Spanish mackerel: Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender flesh over direct heat.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, and helps the flesh brown on the grill.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich, oily flavour of the mackerel.

The step that matters

Turning the fish after it begins to brown. Turn it once the flesh has set and browned on the grill. Turning too early tears the delicate flesh and skin, and leaving it too long over direct heat can dry the fish.

“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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Broiled Spanish Mackerel