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Soused Mackerel

A preserved mackerel dish simmered in vinegar, water, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Soused Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mackerel and place them in a pie dish.

  2. Add the sliced onion, bay leaf, parsley, peppercorns, clove, mace, and salt.

  3. Cover the fish with vinegar and water.

  4. Place another dish on top.

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer very slowly for 1½ hours.

  2. Let the fish cool in the liquid.

  3. Strain a little over them when serving.

  4. Garnish with cress or lettuce.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 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, becoming firm and flaky as it gently poaches.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fish when pickling.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer very slowly. Gentle heat poaches the fish so it stays moist and tender; boiling vigorously would break up the flesh and toughen the proteins.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, parsley, clove. 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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