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To Bake Mackerel or Herrings with Herbs and Bread-Crumbs

A baked fish dish with herbs, breadcrumbs, and clarified dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Bake Mackerel or Herrings with Herbs and Bread-Crumbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the mackerel or herrings in cold water and dry them with a cloth.

  2. Cut off the heads, split open each fish, and remove the backbone.

  3. Lay one fish open flat on a tin, skin side down.

Make the filling

  1. Wash and dry a sprig of parsley, then chop it finely.

  2. Chop half an onion, a sprig of thyme, and marjoram finely.

  3. Grate a few bread-crumbs until you have about 2 teaspoons.

  4. Mix the onions, herbs, and bread-crumbs together.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle pepper and coarse sea salt over the fish in the tin.

  2. Spread the mixture of herbs and bread-crumbs over the fish.

  3. Place the other fish on top, skin side up.

  4. Melt 2 ounces of clarified dripping in a saucepan.

  5. Pour the melted dripping over the fish in the tin.

  6. Cover the tin with a dish and bake for 30 minutes.

  7. Baste occasionally with the dripping while baking.

  8. Carefully turn the fish out onto a hot dish for serving.

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. Onion + parsleytop 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. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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

Mackerel or herrings
Provide the flaky, oily flesh that forms the body of the dish.
Clarified dripping
Adds fat that keeps the fish moist and promotes gentle browning while baking.
Bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, absorbent layer that soaks up fat and browns on the surface.

The step that matters

Baste occasionally with the dripping while baking. Fish is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Regular basting spreads fat over the surface, keeping the flesh moist and helping the crumb topping brown rather than dry out.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, bread, pepper. 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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