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Pickled Fish

A fish preserved in spiced vinegar and oil, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pickled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin the fish and pack it in a deep dish.

  2. Cover the fish with olive oil or butter.

Make the pickle

  1. Spice the vinegar with pepper, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the spiced vinegar over the fish and cover it closely.

Bake

  1. Bake until done.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 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, cooking to a firm, flaky texture.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that flavors the fish and helps preserve it as it pickles.
Olive oil or butter
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until done. The record gives no time or temperature, so the cook must judge doneness. Fish turns opaque and flakes easily when cooked through; overcooking makes it dry and tough, while undercooking leaves it unsafe to eat.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, olive, vinegar, pepper, clove, allspice. 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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