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Potted Fish

A fish dish preserved with salt, spices, flour, and butter, then baked in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Potted Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the fish in salt water for several hours.

  2. Slice the fish and place it in a jar.

Season and bake

  1. Add cloves, allspice, cinnamon, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Sprinkle a little flour and butter on top.

  3. Cover the jar tightly and bake.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and flaky as it cooks slowly.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the top stay soft and coat the fish as it bakes.
Flour
Sprinkled on top, it helps thicken the juices and gives the surface some body.

The step that matters

Cover the jar tightly and bake. A tight seal keeps moisture in so the fish cooks gently in its own juices rather than drying out. If the lid is loose, the fish can dry and lose its texture.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, clove, cinnamon, pepper, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, clove, cinnamon, pepper, flour, butter. 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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