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Baked Salt Mackerel with Crumbs

A baked mackerel seasoned with lemon, parsley, pepper, salt, and breadcrumbs, finished with butter and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Baked Salt Mackerel with Crumbs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the mackerel overnight, then wash in cool water and wipe dry.

  2. Squeeze lemon juice over the inside of the fish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place one fish in a baking pan and cover with a thick dressing of bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, salt, butter, and lemon peel.

  2. Lay the second fish on top and baste with melted butter and hot water.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

  4. Carefully transfer to a hot platter without disturbing the layers.

  5. Top with bread crumbs moistened in melted butter and bake until brown.

  6. Garnish with lemon slices and minced parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + buttertop 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

Mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking through in the oven as the flesh firms and turns opaque.
Bread crumbs
Form a thick crust that absorbs butter and browns in the oven, giving the dish its texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the crumbs brown and crisp.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and butter.

The step that matters

Carefully transfer to a hot platter without disturbing the layers. The crumb dressing sits on top of the fish and the layers are only loosely held together. Moving the fish gently keeps the crust intact and prevents the fish from breaking apart as it is lifted and served.

“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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