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Broiled Mackerel

A grilled mackerel fillet seasoned with pepper and salt, topped with butter and garnished with fennel or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,216 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Broiled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the mackerel well and split it open.

  2. Carefully remove the backbone.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

Grill

  1. Place on a hot, well-greased grill.

  2. Cook for about 7 minutes over a clear fire, turning frequently.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a hot dish.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped fennel or parsley.

  3. Top with a pat of butter and serve immediately.

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 + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Butter + fenneltop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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 to a flaky, opaque texture over direct heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries flavor across the hot fish as it melts.

The step that matters

Place on a hot, well-greased grill.. A hot, greased surface sears the flesh quickly, so it releases cleanly instead of sticking and tearing. A cold or dry grill makes the skin stick and the fish cook unevenly.

Swap the fennel

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

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