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Fresh Herring

A lightly seasoned herring cooked with vinegar, spices, and a moderate oven heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fresh Herring

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slit the fish on each side horizontally.

  2. Sprinkle with mace, bay leaves, parsley, onion, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add vinegar.

Bake

  1. Place in a paper bag and seal it.

  2. Put on the grid in a moderate oven at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. For boiling, add 1 tablespoon of water instead.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Herring
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the sealed bag.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Sealing the paper bag. A tight seal traps the steam and vinegar around the fish so it cooks gently in its own moisture. A loose bag lets the steam escape, which can leave the fish drier.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, onion, 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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