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To Broil Mackerel
If the mackerel is fresh, after it is nicely scaled and cleaned, dry it; pepper and salt and Broil it on a gridiron; baste it with fresh butter. After it is broiled, put it on a hot dish pour melted butter over it, and serve. If the fish is salt, pour boiling water over it, soak it several hours; butter and pepper, and broil; serve in the same way as the fresh.--Mrs. R.
A bare-bones broiling method that assumes a hinged gridiron over coals and a cook who knows when a fish is done. The main translation work is heat source and timing.
- Gridiron to modern broilerThe original means an iron grate set over live coals, with the fish turned once. A gas or electric broiler at high heat, rack about 4 inches from the element, does the same job; a hot grill pan or an outdoor grate is closer in spirit.
- Split the fishMackerel for broiling was commonly split down the backbone and opened flat, skin side out first, though the original does not specify. Whole round fish over direct heat can scorch outside before the middle sets.
- TimingA split fillet of average size needs roughly 4 to 6 minutes skin side up under a hot broiler, and needs no turning. Mackerel is fatty and forgiving of high heat but goes dry quickly once past opaque at the thickest point.
- Dry it, and mean itThis is the hinge of the recipe. Mackerel holds surface moisture; blot it thoroughly with a towel or the flesh steams and slumps instead of taking color.
- Basting with butterButter dripping onto coals flares, and under a modern broiler it browns fast. Brush lightly at the start and again at the end rather than repeatedly during cooking.
- Salt mackerelThe soaking direction is right in principle but vague on time. Salt mackerel from a barrel or tub generally needs several changes of cold water over 6 to 12 hours, refrigerated; taste a shaving of the flesh before cooking to judge whether it has given up enough salt. Note that the original already omits salt from the salt-fish direction.
- Melted butter as sauceIn nineteenth-century English and American cookery "melted butter" often meant a thin flour-thickened butter sauce rather than plain butter. Either works here; plain butter with lemon suits mackerel's oiliness better than the floured version.
- YieldOne mackerel of a pound or so serves one generously or two modestly. Serve immediately: the fat that makes mackerel good hot turns strong as it cools.
Mackerel arrived in nineteenth-century American kitchens in two quite different forms, and this short entry covers both. Fresh mackerel was a coastal, seasonal fish that spoiled notoriously fast before refrigeration, which is why older cookbooks often treat it as a breakfast dish, eaten near where it was landed. Salt mackerel, packed in brine in barrels, traveled anywhere and was a staple of inland pantries; the long soak described here appears to have been familiar enough to need little explanation. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, gathered contributions from named Virginia housewives, and the "Mrs. R." signature is typical of the book's method: brief, practical notes written by cooks for other cooks who already understood their own fires.