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Boiled Salt Mackerel

A boiled salt mackerel served with a cream sauce and garnished with lemon slices or parsley.

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 Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mackerel

  1. Wash and clean the mackerel to remove brine and salt.

  2. Soak the mackerel meat side down in cold water overnight.

  3. Rinse the mackerel in one or two waters.

  4. Wrap each piece of mackerel in a cloth.

  5. Place the wrapped mackerel in a kettle with enough cold water to cover.

  6. Cook the mackerel for about 30 minutes.

  7. Carefully remove the mackerel from the cloth.

  8. Take out the back bones from the mackerel.

Make the sauce

  1. Pour melted butter and cream over the fish.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with pepper.

  3. Heat 1 cup of milk until scalding.

  4. Stir in 1 teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with a little water.

  5. Add 2 tablespoons of butter, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley to the sauce.

  6. Beat the egg lightly.

  7. Gradually pour the sauce over the beaten egg.

  8. Return the mixture to the heat.

  9. Stir for one minute.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  2. Serve garnished with lemon slices or sprigs of parsley or watercress.

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish, its salt is drawn out by soaking and rinsing.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it gently cooks, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk sauce so it coats the fish instead of running off.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the sauce over the fish.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the fish and to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, which is thickened to a creamy consistency.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the sauce over the beaten egg. Pouring hot sauce in slowly while beating keeps the egg from scrambling. Heating the mixture only gently then lets the egg thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, pepper, milk, egg, 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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