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Broiled Spanish Mackerel
Split the mackerel down the back, season with salt and pepper, rub it all over with oil or melted butter and broil on a gridiron over a moderate fire. When one side is browned, turn, and brown the other. If the fish is very large one-half of it may be broiled at a time. Serve, after strewing butter, parsley and lemon juice over it, with lemon sauce. Flounder may be similarly broiled.
A plain split-and-broil treatment that still works, provided you respect the fish's oil content and its thinness. Spanish mackerel cooks in minutes and the difference between good and dry is roughly ninety seconds.
- The hinge: skin side down, mostlyTiming -- A split fish is thin and cooks fast. Under a modern broiler set high, a 1 to 1.5 lb butterflied Spanish mackerel needs roughly 3 to 4 minutes a side, turning once as the recipe directs. Pull it when the thickest part flakes but still looks glossy.
- "A moderate fire" on a gridironCoals burned down past the flaming stage, hot but not fierce; the usual hand test for this is four or five seconds at grate level. On a gas grill that is medium; under an oven broiler, put the rack 4 to 5 inches from the element. The book gives no temperature, so any figure is an approximation.
- Gridiron substitutesA hinged wire fish basket is the closest modern equivalent and makes the turn possible without tearing the fillet. Failing that, broil on a preheated oiled sheet pan and skip the turn entirely, finishing skin side up.
- Split down the backButterflying from the spine side, rather than the belly, keeps the fish in one piece with the belly seam intact. Most fishmongers will do it if asked; the backbone can be left in or lifted out after cooking.
- Oil the fish, not the grateMackerel is oily enough to flare. Rub it lightly and let excess drip off before it goes over the fire, or the flames will scorch the flesh before the interior is done.
- "Strewing butter"Cold butter cut in small pieces and scattered over the hot fish, so it melts into the flesh with the parsley and lemon. About 2 tablespoons for a whole fish.
- Lemon sauceThe book is cross-referring to a separate recipe not given here; in books of this type it would most likely be a butter or drawn-butter sauce sharpened with lemon. Melted butter with lemon and parsley serves the same purpose.
- YieldOne Spanish mackerel of 1 to 2 lb serves two. Flounder, being leaner, wants a heavier hand with the butter and a shorter time over the fire.
Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus) was a prized Atlantic and Gulf market fish in the late nineteenth century, running north along the coast in summer and reaching city markets by rail and ice; it commanded higher prices than the common Atlantic mackerel and was treated as a fresh, fine-flavored fish rather than something to be salted in barrels. Broiling split on a gridiron over coals was a common American way with oily fish, and the method is often said to have carried over from open-hearth cooking into the coal and gas range era with little change. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns, issued this cook book as part of a broad line of domestic manuals aimed at middle-class households; the terse, assume-nothing style here and the throwaway note that flounder may be done the same way are typical of a book organizing basic technique by category rather than by dish.