Name: To Broil Mackerel
Ingredients: Mackerel; 1 egg yolk; a pinch of nutmeg; a little lemon peel, finely chopped; a little thyme; parsley, boiled and chopped; a little pepper; a little salt; a few crumbs of bread

Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

To Broil Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove the heads and gut the mackerel, then wash them clean.
Boil the roe in a little water, then mash it with a spoon.

Stuff and broil

In a bowl, mix the mashed roe with the egg yolk, nutmeg, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, pepper, salt, and bread crumbs.
Stuff the mixture into the body of the mackerel.
Broil the mackerel until cooked through and serve.

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.

Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,973 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 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

Egg yolk: Binds the stuffing so it holds together in the fish.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and texture.
Mackerel roe: Adds richness and a savoury flavour to the stuffing.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, bread):

Marjoramfits better
Sagefits better
Tarragonfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper, bread. 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.