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Baked Potatoes with Salt Heeeings, Beelin Style

A baked potato dish layered with sliced potatoes, herring, and a creamy sauce, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Potatoes with Salt Heeeings, Beelin Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes and herring

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Slice the boiled potatoes.

  3. Season the sliced potatoes with salt.

  4. Wash, skin and bone the pickled herrings.

  5. Cut the herrings into scallops.

  6. Soak the scalloped herrings in milk.

Make the sauce

  1. Finely slice the onions.

  2. Sauté the sliced onions in butter over low heat until soft but not browned.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook the flour mixture for a few minutes.

  4. Gradually add cream or boiled milk to create a thick sauce.

  5. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and meat glaze.

  6. Cook the seasoned sauce slowly for 20 minutes.

  7. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a deep baking dish.

  2. Layer the sliced potatoes in the dish.

  3. Layer the sauce over the potatoes.

  4. Layer the herring over the sauce.

  5. Repeat the layers.

  6. Finish with a top layer of potatoes and sauce.

  7. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs.

  8. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

  9. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 20 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the layers and soften into a tender, moist body when baked.
Pickled herrings
Provide the main savoury, tangy flavour and a firm, flaky texture within the layers.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften slowly in butter without browning.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion mixture into a smooth sauce that binds the layers.
Cream or boiled milk
Makes the sauce rich and creamy, adding moisture and body to the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the onions and helping the top brown lightly.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce slowly and keeping the onions unbrowned. Flour thickens smoothly only when cooked gently with the liquid added gradually; high heat can scorch the onions and make the sauce taste bitter and lumpy. Straining through a sieve removes lumps and onion fragments for a smooth, even sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, butter, flour, cream, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, flour, cream, pepper, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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