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Pickled Mackerel

A preserved mackerel cured in a salt and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and coriander work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pickled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the heads and part of the skin from the belly of the mackerel.

  2. Soak the fish in brine for 3 to 4 hours.

Cure and pack

  1. In a bowl, mix the coarse sea salt, saltpetre, sugar, white pepper, and ground coriander seed.

  2. Sprinkle some of the mixture on the bottom of a jar.

  3. Layer the mackerel in the jar with the back side down.

  4. Repeat layering with the remaining mixture and 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. White pepper + coriandertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + coriandertop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,749 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + white peppertop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together812 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
Is the main protein that the cure firms and preserves.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the fish and keeps its color during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the fish during the cure.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness and softens the harsh edge of the cure.

The step that matters

Layering the mackerel in the jar. Salt cure must reach every part of the fish evenly; packing the mixture between layers and keeping the fish submerged in its own brine prevents spoilage and uneven curing.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, coriander):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, coriander. 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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