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Boiled Mackerel, Parsley-sauce

Boiled mackerel served with a parsley sauce made from butter, flour, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Mackerel, Parsley-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Open the back of the mackerel and cleanse them.

  2. Place the mackerel in a stewpan and cover with cold water.

  3. Add salt, vinegar, bay leaf, and parsley.

  4. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 12 minutes.

  5. Drain the fish and place on a serving dish.

Make the parsley sauce

  1. In a separate stewpan, melt butter and flour to form a paste.

  2. Moisten the paste with fish broth or boiled water with parsley.

  3. Add peppercorns, nutmeg, and lemon juice; stir over moderate heat until slightly thickened.

  4. Once it bubbles, remove from heat and gradually stir in the remaining butter until absorbed.

  5. Strain the sauce, mix in chopped parsley, and serve over the mackerel.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
Firm oily flesh that cooks through gently in simmering water and stays moist.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and rich flavour while helping form the smooth paste.
Flour
Mixed with butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over moderate heat. Once the flour-butter paste is moistened, it must be stirred gently over moderate heat. Starch needs to be heated to thicken, but overheating or rapid boiling can scorch the roux or make the sauce grainy. Removing it from heat before adding the remaining butter keeps the emulsion smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, parsley, butter, flour, fish, lemon):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, parsley, butter, flour, fish, lemon. 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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