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Baked White Herrings

A baked herring dish seasoned with mustard, bay leaves, cloves, allspice, mace, cayenne pepper, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 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 White Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Take the herrings, cut off the heads, and gut them.

  2. The herrings may be cut down the front, the backbone taken out, and closed again.

Bake

  1. Put them in a pie-dish, heads and tails alternately, and, between each layer, sprinkle over the above ingredients.

  2. Cover the fish with the vinegar, and bake for 1/2 hour, but do not use it till quite cold.

Serve

  1. Pick the fish carefully from the bones, mix with the other ingredients, and serve very hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

314Calories
11 gProtein
7 gFat
51 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 11 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Herringnot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 baked.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fish.
Boiled rice
Adds bulk and soaks up moisture, giving the mixture body.
Eggs
Soft-boiled eggs add richness and help bind the mixture together.
Mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the fish.

The step that matters

Let the fish cool before using the vinegar. The record says not to use the baked fish until it is quite cold, so it can set and firm. Serving it hot as the final step follows the record's instruction, so the cook should check the order carefully.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, clove, allspice, rice, egg, pepper, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, clove, allspice, rice, egg, 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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