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Salt Mackerel

A salted mackerel cooked in cream and butter, served with lemon slices and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Salt Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mackerel

  1. Soak the salt mackerel in cold water for 48 hours, skin side up.

  2. Boil the mackerel, skin side down, until cooked through.

Make the cream sauce and serve

  1. Transfer to a skillet and cover with fresh cream and butter.

  2. Boil for 4 minutes.

  3. Serve with lemon slices and hashed parsley on top.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Cream + parsleytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,392 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt mackerel
Main protein; the long soak draws out salt before the fish is cooked.
Fresh cream
Adds richness and body, giving the fish a smooth, creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, enriching the cream sauce and coating the fish.

The step that matters

Boiling the fish in cream for 4 minutes. Cream is an emulsion of fat and water, and a hard, prolonged boil can make it separate or reduce too far. Keep the heat controlled so the sauce stays smooth and coats the fish.

“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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