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Baked Herrings

A baked fish dish of herrings seasoned with spices, vinegar, and ginger, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Herrings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Place the herrings in a deep dish and season with black pepper, salt, cayenne, cloves, allspice, peppercorns, mace, bruised ginger, and horseradish.

  3. Add cold water and vinegar to the dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve cold, strained, and topped with chopped chives.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Horseradish + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Allspice + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together654 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Form the main body of the dish and carry the flavour of the spices and pickling liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fish.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent bite that balances the richness of the fish.
Chives
Add a fresh, mild onion-like aroma as a finishing garnish.

The step that matters

Baking at a low temperature. Baking at a low 300°F heat cooks the herring gently so the flesh stays moist and tender rather than drying out or breaking apart. Cooking too hot toughens the proteins and makes the fish dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, allspice, ginger, vinegar, horseradish, chive):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, allspice, ginger, vinegar, horseradish, chive. 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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