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Pickled Mackerel, Called Caveach

This is pickled mackerel seasoned with pepper, nutmeg, mace, salt, fried, then marinated in vinegar and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Pickled Mackerel, Called Caveach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the mackerel into round pieces.

  2. Mix the salt and beaten spices together.

  3. Make 2-3 holes in each piece and thrust the seasoning into the holes.

  4. Rub the pieces all over with the seasoning.

Fry and pickle

  1. Fry the pieces in oil until brown and let them cool.

  2. Put the cooled pieces into vinegar and cover them with oil.

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 + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, holding the seasoning and absorbing the pickling liquid.
Oil
Frying browns the fish surface, and a covering of oil helps seal the pickled pieces.
Vinegar
Acidity preserves the fish and gives the pickled dish its sharp flavour.
Pepper
Adds sharp heat and aroma that penetrates the fish through the holes.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the seasoning mix.

The step that matters

Frying until brown and cooling fully before pickling. Browning the surface builds flavour and firms the flesh, while fully cooling the pieces before adding vinegar and oil prevents the hot fish from softening and keeps the pickling liquid from becoming greasy or cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, 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.

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