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Mackerel Stewed with Wine

A stew of mackerel cooked in a sauce of butter, flour, mace, salt, cayenne, claret wine, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mackerel Stewed with Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat and mix in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the mace, salt, and cayenne pepper, stirring well.

  3. Gradually pour in the claret and bring the sauce to a boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Gently add the mackerel to the sauce and stew for 15 to 20 minutes, turning halfway through.

  2. Carefully remove the mackerel and place on a serving dish.

  3. Stir the prepared mustard into the sauce, bring to a boil, and pour 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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mace + port winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together695 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel
The main protein, which cooks gently in the sauce until tender and flaky.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and gives the sauce body.
Claret
Provides the liquid and acidity that forms the body of the sauce.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and a little pungency to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stewing the mackerel. Mackerel is delicate and breaks apart if the sauce is boiling hard. Adding it gently and keeping the stew at a gentle simmer lets the flesh cook through while staying in whole pieces.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, port wine, mustard. 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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