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Another Way to Bake Herring

A method of baking herring with ale, vinegar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Another Way to Bake Herring

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the herring and remove the heads and fins.

  2. Season the herring with pepper, coarse sea salt, a little saltpetre, grated nutmeg, and bay leaves.

  3. Pack the herring in a jar or deep dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the herring with ale and add a small quantity of vinegar.

  2. Bake for 9 to 10 hours.

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

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,864 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

Herring
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during the long slow bake.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the herring and keeps its colour pink during the long bake.
Ale
Adds liquid and flavour, helping the herring stay moist during the long bake.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps preserve the fish and sharpens its flavour.

The step that matters

Covering the herring with ale and vinegar. The liquid must fully cover the fish so it bakes evenly and does not dry out over many hours. The vinegar's acidity works with the salt to preserve the fish and firm its flesh.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar. 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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