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Broiled Salt Mackerel

Broiled salt mackerel prepared by soaking, drying, broiling, and serving with pepper, butter, and hot sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the mackerel and soak it in cold water for 24 hours, changing the water 2-3 times.

  2. Place the fish inside down to prevent salt settling; add vinegar to the water to speed up freshening.

  3. Remove the fish, wipe it dry, and hang it up to dry for half a day.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the fish over a clear fire for 30 minutes, greasing the broiler first.

  2. Serve on a hot platter, seasoning with pepper, butter, and pour over hot sweet cream.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavor of the fish.
Hot sweet cream
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that softens the salty fish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the fish and adding flavor.
Vinegar
Adds mild acidity to the soaking water, helping draw out salt more quickly.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt mackerel. Salt must be drawn out of the fish by repeated changes of cold water. Too little soaking leaves the fish harshly salty, while the fish should be kept inside down so salt does not settle in the flesh.

“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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