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Fresh Herring

Baked fresh herring marinated with mace, bay leaves, parsley, onion, salt, pepper, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fresh Herring

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slit the fish on each side horizontally.

  2. Place mace, bay leaves, parsley, onion, salt, and pepper on the fish.

  3. Add tarragon vinegar.

  4. Place the fish in a paper bag and seal the bag.

Bake and serve

  1. Cook in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  2. Serve on a hot dish with beetroot salad.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh herring
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked gently in its own moisture.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp aroma that cut through the richness of the fish.
Bay leaves
Contribute a subtle aromatic flavour as the fish steams in the bag.

The step that matters

Seal the bag. A tightly sealed paper bag traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own moisture. If the seal leaks, steam escapes, the fish dries out, and the flavours from the herbs and vinegar do not concentrate.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, pepper, tarragon, 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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