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Pickled Herrings

Roe herrings are layered in a crock with salt and whole spices, covered with vinegar, and kept closed for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Pickled Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the herrings

  1. In a large stone crock, place a layer of herrings.

  2. Cover the herrings with coarse sea salt, cloves, allspice, mace, and whole peppercorns.

  3. Repeat layering until the crock is full.

Cover and cure

  1. Cover the entire mixture with vinegar.

  2. Simmer on the stove for 12 hours without boiling.

  3. Keep covered with vinegar and tightly closed for weeks.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Main fish; their firm, oily flesh becomes tender and mellow as it cures in vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that preserves the fish and balances its richness.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture from the fish and helps firm its texture during curing.
Whole peppercorns
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma that infuses the fish as it sits.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Gentle heat softens the fish and firms its flesh without breaking it apart. A rolling boil would toughen the herrings and cause them to fall apart.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, clove, allspice, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, clove, allspice, 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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