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Mackereli Baked

A baked mackerel coated with bread crumbs, parsley, onions, and spices, served with a brown piquant sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mackereli Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mackerel by removing the gills and cleaning them.

  2. Mix bread crumbs, parsley, minced onions, mushroom, cayenne, salt, thyme, and nutmeg.

  3. Sprinkle the mixture over one fish, skin side down, in a greased baking tin.

  4. Place the second fish on top, skin side up.

Bake

  1. Grease a sheet of paper and cover the fish, tucking it down.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, less if the fish are small.

Serve

  1. Transfer the fish to a hot dish and add their cooking liquid to the brown sauce.

  2. Boil the sauce, skim it, and pour it around the fish.

  3. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and garnish with fried parsley or onions.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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 and carries the flavour of the stuffing and cooking juices.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the fish and form a light, lightly browned crust on top.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma that brightens the rich flavour of the oily fish.
Minced onions
Contribute savoury aroma and moisture to the stuffing mixture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Baking time. Mackerel is oily and cooks quickly, so overbaking dries the flesh. Smaller fish need less time, so check them before the full 30 minutes has passed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, mushroom, pepper, thyme, nutmeg, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, mushroom, pepper, thyme, nutmeg, sauce. 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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