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Broiled Mackerel

Broiled mackerel seasoned with salt, pepper, oil, and butter, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Broiled Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut off the tail and fins, remove the gills and insides, and wipe the fish clean without washing.

  2. Split the back of the mackerel lengthwise to the bone.

  3. Place the fish on a dish and season with salt, pepper, and oil.

Grill and serve

  1. Grill the mackerel over a brisk fire for 6 minutes on each side and 4 minutes on the open back.

  2. Melt the maitre d'hotel butter and place it on the back of the fish before serving.

  3. Serve on a hot dish.

Second method

  1. For the second method, fill the gills with a mixture of butter, minced parsley, chives, salt, and pepper.

  2. Open the back from head to tail and fill the cut with the remaining mixture.

  3. Wrap the fish in well-buttered paper and grill over a slow fire or in the oven.

  4. Remove the paper when ready and squeeze lemon juice over the fish.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Chive + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 flaky tender flesh over direct heat.
Maitre d'hotel butter
Melts over the hot fish, adding richness and moisture to the surface.
Oil
Coats the fish so the skin browns and does not stick to the grill.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the buttery filling.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and oily fish.

The step that matters

Grilling over a brisk fire. Mackerel is oily and thin, so a hot fire sears the skin and sets the flesh quickly. Too low a heat dries the fish before the outside browns.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, parsley, 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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