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Baked Herrings

A preserved herring dish baked with vinegar, salt, pepper, mace, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaves, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Baked Herrings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the herrings

  1. Scale and clean the herrings carefully, avoiding washing unless necessary.

  2. Split each herring along the back and remove the backbone.

  3. Sprinkle the inside of each herring with a mixture of pepper, coarse sea salt, and powdered mace.

  4. If any roes are present, enclose them within the fish.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the herrings in a deep baking dish, placing cloves, peppercorns, and bay leaves between the fish.

  2. Cover the fish with equal parts vinegar and water, then sprinkle with additional salt.

  3. Tie a sheet of oiled or buttered paper over the top of the dish.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 as they cook.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the fish a sharp, tangy flavor and helps firm its flesh.
Bay leaves
Contribute a subtle aromatic flavor to the fish as it cooks in the liquid.

The step that matters

Covering the dish with oiled or buttered paper. The paper traps moisture and gentle heat around the fish so it cooks evenly without drying out or browning too quickly on the surface.

Swap the mace

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

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

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