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Broiled Mackerel

A simple broiled mackerel seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon, and cayenne, served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the mackerel thoroughly in two or three waters to remove blood.

  2. Dry the fish with a cloth and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Rub lemon juice over the mackerel.

Broil and serve

  1. Grease the grill and place the mackerel on it.

  2. Broil the fish on both sides until cooked through.

  3. Melt the butter in a cup.

  4. Serve the mackerel on a hot dish and drizzle with melted butter, lemon juice, and a sprinkle of cayenne.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 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

Mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks through under the grill.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture when melted over the cooked fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Broil the fish on both sides until cooked through. Mackerel is an oily fish that dries out quickly under direct heat, so it should be cooked just until the flesh is opaque and flakes easily. Turning it once ensures even cooking on both sides.

“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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