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To Cook Salt Mackerel
Soak, the fish over night in fresh water. In the morning drain off the water and place on a gridiron to broil, dressing with hot butter.--Mrs. T.
A three-line recipe that depends almost entirely on the soak. Salt mackerel from a nineteenth-century barrel was preserved hard; today's salted mackerel and salt cod vary widely, so taste before you commit to the fire.
- The soak is the recipeOvernight in cold fresh water is the minimum, and the water should be changed two or three times — once before bed, once on waking. Standing in its own brine all night simply pickles the fish again. Refrigerate while soaking rather than leaving it on the counter.
- Test the saltBreak off a corner of the soaked fish and poach it a minute in water, then taste. If it is still aggressively salty, give it another few hours. Modern lightly-cured mackerel may need only two or three hours.
- Gridiron to broilerA gridiron was a rack set over live coals. Use an oven broiler with the rack about 4 inches from the element, or a well-oiled grill pan. Grease the bars first; salt fish sticks and the skin tears.
- Skin side firstOver coals the skin down protects the flesh from the heat; under an overhead broiler the flesh will face the element, so watch it and give the surface only as long as it needs to brown. A split mackerel of ordinary size wants roughly 4 to 6 minutes; it is done when the flesh flakes readily.
- Dry it before it meets heatDrain and pat the fish thoroughly. Wet fish steams rather than browns, and the butter will spit.
- "Dressing with hot butter"Most likely butter melted and poured over the fish rather than brushed on during cooking, though the wording leaves both readings open. Melt 3 to 4 tablespoons, add a squeeze of lemon and a grind of pepper if you like, and pour it over the fish on a warm platter. Add no salt.
- YieldOne split salt mackerel of about a pound serves two as a breakfast or supper dish, traditionally with boiled potatoes to absorb the butter.
Salt mackerel was breakfast food along the whole Atlantic seaboard, and it travelled inland the same way salt cod did — in barrels, as a cheap, shelf-stable protein that needed no ice. Mackerel is oily and spoils fast, so much of the catch was split, gutted and packed in brine; barrels were graded by number, with No. 1 the largest and fattest. Recipes like this one assume the reader already knows the fish, which is why Mrs. T. spends no words on choosing it and all of them on getting the salt back out. The overnight freshening and the pour of hot butter are the standard treatment found in cookbooks on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line through the nineteenth century.