Skip to main content
Main

Baked Mackerel or Herrings

A baked fish dish using mackerel or herrings, bread crumbs, parsley, herbs, and dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Mackerel or Herrings

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the heads, fins, and bones from the fish. Wash and dry them.

  2. Simmer the heads, fins, and bones to make gravy.

  3. Sprinkle the fish lightly with pepper, salt, and flour.

Assemble

  1. Place the fish in a baking dish with melted dripping.

  2. Mix the bread crumbs, parsley, and herbs with a little salt and pepper. Spread the mixture over the fish.

  3. Cover the fish with the other fish. Dredge the covered fish again with pepper, salt, and flour.

  4. Finish with raspings.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes, basting a few times.

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

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

  2. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, cooking into moist, flaky flesh.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust over the fish as they bake.
Dripping
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the crust brown.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma that lightens the rich fish.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Spooning melted fat over the fish during baking keeps the surface moist and helps the crumb coating brown evenly, so the fish does not dry out before it is cooked through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, pepper. 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.

More baked mackerel recipes

or Herring 4 See all 75 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes