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A Nice Way to Cook Salt Mackerel

A method for preparing salted 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 fish in lukewarm water for several hours, changing the water several times.

  2. Wrap the fish in cloths and place them in cold water until it boils.

  3. Remove the fish, drain them, and place them on a platter.

Bake and serve

  1. Add a little butter and pepper on top.

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

  3. 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
The main ingredient; soaking draws out salt while the flesh stays firm and flaky.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, carrying flavour and helping the fish stay moist in the oven.
Lemons
Sliced lemons add acidity that cuts the richness of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Soaking in lukewarm water. Salt slowly diffuses out of the fish into the water. Changing the water keeps the gradient steep, so the fish loses enough salt. A short soak leaves the fish too salty.

“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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