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Boiled Salt Mackerel

Boiled mackerel that has been soaked to remove salt, served with butter sauce and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight to remove the salt.

Cook

  1. Boil the mackerel in a pan in clear water until cooked.

  2. Drain the mackerel.

Serve

  1. Place the mackerel on a dish.

  2. Garnish with parsley.

  3. Melt butter to make a sauce.

  4. Serve the sauce with boiled potatoes.

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
Forms the main dish; its flesh turns opaque and flakes as it cooks through.
Butter
Melted into a sauce, it adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Boiled potatoes
Provide starch as a mild, filling side that soaks up the butter sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the mackerel until cooked. Fish proteins set at gentle heat; boiling it hard or too long toughens the flesh and makes it break apart, so it should be checked as it cooks.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, potato):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, potato. 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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