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Mackerel, Baked

A baked mackerel fillet coated with bread crumbs, parsley, onions, and spices, served with a brown piquant sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mackerel, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mackerel by cleaning and removing the gills.

  2. Mix bread crumbs, parsley, minced onions, mushroom, cayenne, salt, thyme, and nutmeg.

  3. Sprinkle the mixture over one fish, skin side down, and place the second fish on top, skin side up.

Bake

  1. Grease a sheet of paper and cover the fish, tucking it down.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, adjusting time for smaller fish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a hot dish and add their cooking liquid to a brown piquant sauce; boil and skim.

  2. Pour the sauce around the fish, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and serve garnished with fried parsley or onions.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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 and provides the rich, oily flesh that the stuffing and sauce accompany.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and juices from the fish, giving the filling body and a lightly crisp top.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma that brightens the rich flavour of the fish.
Minced onions
Add savoury aroma and sweetness as they soften in the filling during baking.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that cuts through the richness of the oily fish.

The step that matters

Baking the stuffed fish. Mackerel is oily and cooks quickly, so overbaking dries the flesh. Smaller fish need less time, so check them early.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, mushroom, pepper, thyme, 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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