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Herrings, Pie of

A savory pie of herrings with apples, onions, nutmeg, lemon rind, and butter, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Herrings, Pie of

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Scale and clean the herrings, then cut off their heads, fins, and tails.

  2. Split the herrings open, remove the bones, and season the inner surface with salt and pepper.

  3. Grease a pie dish with butter and line the edge with pie crust.

Assemble the pie

  1. Spread a layer of minced apples and onions (½ inch thick) on the bottom of the dish.

  2. Place the prepared herrings on top of the apple and onion layer.

  3. Cover the herrings with another layer of the apple and onion mixture.

  4. Sprinkle the surface with grated nutmeg and finely shredded lemon rind.

  5. Dot the top with small pieces of butter, pour in a little water, and cover with a pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 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

Herrings
Form the main filling and provide the rich, oily flavour that the pie is built around.
Apples
Add moisture and gentle sweetness that balance the fish's richness and soften during baking.
Onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften under the crust.
Butter (for topping)
Adds fat that enriches the filling and helps the top crust brown.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling, holding in steam and moisture while the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Dot the top with butter, add water, then cover with crust. Water and butter give moisture and fat under the lid; without them the filling can dry out or scorch before the crust sets and browns.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, pepper, butter, onion, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, pepper, butter, onion, nutmeg, lemon. 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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