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Broiled Salt Mackerel

Broiled salt mackerel served with melted butter, lemon juice, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Broiled Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt mackerel overnight in cold water.

  2. In the morning, dry the mackerel and rub a little butter on it.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the mackerel until nicely cooked, but not too long.

  2. Plunge the cooked mackerel into boiling water for a moment to make it swell.

  3. Serve on a hot plate with melted butter, lemon juice, and pepper.

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. Lemon + peppertop 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
Is the main fish, cured and salted, so soaking removes excess salt before cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the skin and fish while broiling, and is served melted on top.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, oily flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Broil until just cooked, not too long. Mackerel is oily and dries out quickly under high heat, so pulling it from the broiler as soon as it is cooked keeps the flesh moist and tender.

“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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