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A Nice Way to Cook Salt Mackerel

This dish is a method of cooking salt mackerel by soaking, boiling, baking, and seasoning with butter, pepper, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Nice Way to Cook Salt Mackerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt mackerel in lukewarm water for several hours, changing the water several times.

  2. Wrap the fish in cloths.

  3. Lay the wrapped fish in cold water and bring to a boil.

Drain and season

  1. Remove the fish from the water and drain it.

  2. Place the fish on a platter and add a little butter and pepper on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for four to five minutes.

  2. Serve with sliced lemons.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salt mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish; soaking draws out salt so the flesh tastes seasoned, not harsh.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish taste rounded and savoury.
Sliced lemons
Adds acidity that cuts the richness of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt mackerel. Salt mackerel is cured very salty. Soaking in fresh lukewarm water for several hours, with frequent water changes, draws out excess salt through diffusion. Skipping or shortening this leaves the fish too salty to enjoy.

“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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