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Kippered Herrings and Mullets

A preserved fish dish of herrings and mullets pickled in brine and vinegar with herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Kippered Herrings and Mullets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale the herrings and remove the heads and gills. Remove the entrails without splitting the body.

  2. Soak the dressed fish in cold brine with 25% salt for 45 minutes.

  3. Drain the fish and arrange them in flat boxes or jars.

Pack and seal

  1. Add sage, thyme, parsley, tarragon, onion slices, and dried citron or lemon peel to the jars.

  2. Pour in a mixture of 1 part boiled water and 2 parts cold vinegar until the jars are full.

  3. Seal the jars and process at 240°F (115°C) for 5 minutes per pound of fish.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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, becoming tender and flaky when cooked.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and firms its flesh during the brine soak.
Cold vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fish and gives the pickled flavour.
Onion
Adds sharp aromatic flavour that mellows within the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Seal the jars and process at 240°F (115°C) for 5 minutes per pound of fish. Processing heat must reach the centre of the jars to make the fish safe to keep. Under-processing risks spoilage, so timing should follow the fish's weight and the jar's contents.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, thyme, parsley, tarragon, lemon, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, thyme, parsley, tarragon, lemon, 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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