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Broiled Salt Mackerel
Soak in plenty of cold water over night two medium salt mackerel. Drain well, turn them in a tablespoon oil, arrange on a broiler and broil for six minutes on each side. Remove, dress on a hot dish, spread a tablespoon melted butter over the fish and serve.
A three-line recipe that depends almost entirely on the soak. Get that right and the rest is a few minutes under heat.
- The soak is the whole dishSalt mackerel is heavily cured and inedible without desalting. Overnight in a generous volume of cold water, skin side up, refrigerated, changing the water once or twice if you remember; a corner tasted raw-ish or a small piece poached will tell you whether it is still too salty.
- SourcingWhole salt mackerel is now mostly a specialist item, turning up in Portuguese, Italian and Caribbean groceries, sold split or from brine buckets. Frozen or fresh mackerel is not a substitute here — the texture and concentrated flavour come from the cure.
- "A broiler" in 1900"A broiler" -- In a book of this period this could mean a hinged wire gridiron held over coals or in front of an open fire, or the broiler of a gas range; either way the recipe's "six minutes on each side" means the fish was turned. Under a modern overhead broiler you cannot turn it the same way: set it skin side down about 4 inches from the element, and give it roughly 5-8 minutes without flipping, until the flesh is opaque and the skin blisters.
- Twelve minutes total is a lotSix minutes a side suits a thick, bone-in split fish over fire. A supermarket-thickness fillet will be dry well before that; go by opacity at the thickest point rather than the clock.
- Oil then butterThe tablespoon of oil is a coating to stop sticking and to help the skin crisp, not a marinade — turn the fish in it just before cooking. The melted butter goes on after, off the heat, so it does not scorch.
- SeasoningNo salt is called for and none should be added. Lemon, coarse black pepper or a little chopped parsley in the finishing butter is in keeping with the period.
- YieldTwo medium salt mackerel serve two to four, depending on whether this is breakfast or a main course.
Salt mackerel was breakfast food, not a delicacy. Mackerel spoils faster than almost any other fish, so before reliable refrigeration the North Atlantic catch was split, salted and barrelled in enormous quantities, and New England and Nova Scotia shipped it inland and abroad as a cheap protein that kept. Broiled salt mackerel with melted butter appears in American and British cookbooks through the nineteenth century as a standard morning dish, alongside salt cod and finnan haddie. Its presence in a book called The International Cook Book is a reminder of how widely the salt-fish trade had carried a single preserved ingredient across the Atlantic world.