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Salt Mackerel Broiled
Soak over night in lukewarm water. Change this early in the morning for very cold, and let the fish lie in this until time to cook; wipe dry. Then proceed as with the fresh mackerel.
A cross-reference recipe: the whole method is the soak, and the cooking is borrowed from the fresh-mackerel entry a few pages earlier. Salt mackerel today is far less heavily cured than the barrel fish of 1900, so the timings need adjusting downward.
- The hinge is the soak, and modern fish needs lessBarrel-salted mackerel of this period was preserved hard and genuinely wanted twelve hours or more. Vacuum-packed salt mackerel from a fishmonger or Asian grocery is much milder; 4 to 6 hours in cold water, with two or three changes, is usually enough. Taste a raw sliver of the thin belly edge before you commit to broiling.
- Lukewarm then cold, and whyWarm water draws salt out faster, but it also sits in the bacterial danger zone. Do the initial soak in the refrigerator in cold water instead and simply extend the time; the cold second soak the recipe calls for is the safer half of the instruction.
- "Proceed as with the fresh mackerel"That entry is not reproduced here; broiled mackerel of the period was generally split and cooked skin side to the fire, over coals or under a hot broiler. Modern equivalent: broiler element preheated, rack 4 to 5 inches below, skin up for 5 to 6 minutes, then flesh up for 2 to 3, brushed with butter. A half-pound fillet is done when the thickest part flakes.
- Wipe dry means drySalt fish holds a great deal of surface water and will steam rather than brown. Press between towels until the skin feels tacky, not slick.
- Do not salt it, and go easy on acidEven a well-soaked fillet carries plenty of salt. Season with pepper and butter only, and serve lemon at the table so diners can judge for themselves.
- YieldThe recipe gives none. A whole split salt mackerel of roughly 3/4 to 1 lb before soaking will serve two.
Salt mackerel was one of the great cheap breakfast foods of the nineteenth-century American Northeast, sold by the barrel and graded by size and fat content; New England mackerel fleets salted their catch at sea, and the fish moved inland as reliable, storable protein long before refrigerated rail cars. In a cookbook of this vintage, the overnight soak begun the night before and refreshed "early in the morning" tells you plainly when it was meant to be eaten. That the entry simply defers to the fresh-mackerel method is characteristic of the genre.