Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Salt Mackerel

Broiled salt mackerel served with hot cream butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight.

  2. Drain well and wipe dry.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the mackerel over a clear fire.

  2. Pour boiling water over the fish for 1-2 minutes, then discard the water.

  3. Melt butter in hot cream.

  4. Pour the butter-cream mixture over the fish.

  5. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  6. 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.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  3. Cream + parsleytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,392 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt mackerel
The main fish, forming the body and substance of the dish.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the salty fish into a smoother texture.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded, mellow richness that carries the flavour of the cream.

The step that matters

Pour boiling water over the fish for 1-2 minutes. A brief scald rinses off surface salt and softens the fish without cooking it through. Leaving the water on longer can leach out too much flavour and make the flesh tougher.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Macefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes