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Baked Mackerel, or Whitings

Baked mackerel or whiting seasoned with wine, chili vinegar, salt, cayenne, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Mackerel, or Whitings

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Wash and dry the fish, then wrap them in a soft cloth for a while.

  3. Replace the roes in the fish and place them in a baking dish.

Season and bake

  1. Mix the butter with the flour and spread it over the fish.

  2. Add wine, chili vinegar, salt, and cayenne to the dish.

  3. Arrange the fish with heads and tails towards each other, backs down.

  4. Cover with buttered paper and press down.

  5. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the paper and serve with the sauce.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Whiting + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 or whiting
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the oven as the protein base.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the fish so it stays tender while baking.
Flour
Thickens the buttery coating slightly, helping it cling to the fish and form a light sauce.
Wine
Adds liquid and acidity to the dish, moistening the fish and building the sauce flavour.

The step that matters

Covering with buttered paper and baking gently. Baking at a low 300°F with the fish covered lets it cook through slowly and stay moist. Heating too hard or leaving it uncovered can dry the flesh out before it is done.

“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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