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Broiled Spanish Mackerel
Split a good-sized Spanish mackerel down the back, clean and wipe as dry as possible, leaving the head and tail on or off, as desired. Sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Rub the wire broiler with Crisco and lay on this, flesh side up. Turn when the flesh is tender and broil on the skin side until brown and crisp, and serve with cucumbers dressed with oil and lemon juice.
A whole split fish cooked over a wire broiler — written for a coal or gas grate rather than an overhead broiler, which changes the order of operations.
- The hinge: dry fish, greased gridMackerel skin sticks and tears the moment it meets a cold or dry grid. Wipe the flesh until no surface moisture remains, oil the wire generously, and let the grid heat before the fish goes on.
- Wire broiler vs. modern broilerA "wire broiler" is a hinged double grid held over the fire, so the fish is turned. Under a modern overhead broiler you cannot turn it usefully: set the rack 4–5 inches from the element, cook skin side up throughout, and expect 8–10 minutes total for a split fish. On a grill, follow the original and turn once.
- CriscoNewly introduced hydrogenated shortening when this book was written; the book itself was published by its maker, Procter & Gamble. Any neutral high-smoke-point oil or clarified butter does the same job.
- Split down the backButterflying through the backbone rather than the belly is the usual cut for broiling a whole fish. Ask for the fish butterflied and pin-boned, or buy two fillets and shorten the cooking to about 6 minutes.
- DonenessSpanish mackerel is lean for a mackerel and dries quickly. Pull it when the thickest part just flakes and reads about 130–135°F; carryover heat finishes it.
- YieldA "good-sized" Spanish mackerel runs 1½ to 2 lb whole and serves two, or three at a table with several other dishes.
- The cucumbersDressed with oil and lemon only — no vinegar, no cream. Salt the sliced cucumber for 15 minutes and drain before dressing, or the plate floods.
Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus) was one of the prestige food fishes of the American Atlantic and Gulf coasts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it turns up constantly on hotel and steamer menus of the period, often broiled and, by long tradition, served with cucumbers. The pairing is old restaurant logic: a rich, oily fish set against something cold, acid and watery. What dates this particular version is the shortening. Crisco went on sale in 1911, and its makers published a series of cookery books hat assassigned a dinner to every day of the year — in which the product is written into recipes where a cook would previously have reached for butter, lard or salad oil. Rubbing a fish grid with vegetable shortening rather than butter is not better technique; it is advertising folded into a competent recipe.