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Fresh Herrings Baked

Baked herrings seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, parsley, thyme, vinegar, and beer, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fresh Herrings Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the herrings in clear spring water and clean them thoroughly.

  2. Drain the herrings and place them in a baking dish without wiping.

Season and bake

  1. Season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle the chopped onions, parsley, and thyme on top.

  2. Pour equal parts vinegar and small beer over the herrings.

  3. Cover the dish and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, keeping them in the pickle for flavor.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Provide the oily, firm flesh that is the main body of the dish.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that mellow as they cook in the liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps preserve the fish in the pickle.
Small beer
Adds a mild malty depth that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Covered slow baking. Baking gently at a low temperature with the dish covered cooks the fish evenly so it becomes tender without drying or breaking apart. Too much heat can toughen the flesh and dry it out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, thyme, vinegar, beer. 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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