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Salad

Mackerel Salad

A salad of boiled mackerel fillets topped with a creamy almond, garlic, and French roll crumb sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mackerel Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and wash the mackerel.

  2. Boil the mackerel in a saucepan of boiling water until tender.

  3. Drain the fish and let it cool.

  4. Remove the heads and separate the flesh from the bones.

  5. Arrange the fillets on a dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Blanch and skin the almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds and garlic in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Soak the crumb from the French roll in water, then squeeze it out.

  4. Add the soaked crumb to the almond and garlic mixture and pound until smooth.

  5. Mix in the vinegar and enough water to achieve a thick cream consistency.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fish, dust with salt and cayenne pepper, and serve.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Almond + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 as the flaked, tender fish.
Almonds
Pounded to a smooth base that gives the sauce its body and rich, nutty flavour.
French roll
Soaked and squeezed crumb thickens the sauce to a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the rich almond sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the almond sauce.

The step that matters

Mix in the vinegar and enough water to achieve a thick cream consistency.. Almond and bread sauces thicken as they stand and absorb liquid, so the water must be added gradually until the sauce reaches a thick cream consistency. Too much liquid makes it thin and watery, while too little leaves it stiff.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, garlic, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, garlic, vinegar, pepper. 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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