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To Broil Mackerel

Broiled mackerel seasoned with pepper, sea salt, mint, parsley, fennel, and flour, served with fennel butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Broil Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the mackerel and split them down the back.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, chopped mint, parsley, and fennel.

  3. Dust with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil until light brown.

  2. Place on a dish and garnish with parsley.

  3. Serve with a sauce of fennel and butter in a separate dish.

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 + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mint + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 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, providing the flesh that is cooked and served.
Flour
Dusting on the fish helps it develop a light brown surface under the broiler.
Butter
Used in the separate sauce, adding richness and a smooth, fatty texture.
Fennel
Adds a mild aniseed aroma to the seasoning and to the sauce.

The step that matters

Broil until light brown. Broiling is fast and intense, so the fish can dry out or scorch quickly. Watch closely and stop once the surface is light brown, so the flesh stays moist and tender.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, fennel, flour, butter):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, fennel, flour, butter. 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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