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Creamed Salt Mackerel

A dish of salted mackerel simmered in a creamy sauce of milk, cornstarch, butter, egg, parsley, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Salt Mackerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the fish overnight and wipe dry before using.

  2. Broil the fish on a buttered grill over a clear fire.

  3. Place the fish on a hot dish.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Stir cornstarch, rubbed smooth with butter, into boiling milk.

  2. Cook until thickened, then add the beaten egg, mixing carefully to prevent curdling.

  3. Cook for a moment longer, then season with parsley and pepper.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt mackerel
Is the main fish, salted and soaked so its saltiness is reduced before cooking.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce as it heats.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and adds body when gently cooked into it.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps make the cornstarch smooth before it is stirred in.

The step that matters

Adding the egg to the thickened sauce. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle if the sauce is too hot or stirred too vigorously. Cooking gently after the sauce has thickened, and mixing carefully, keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, egg, 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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