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Potted Fish

A preserved fish dish made by layering fish with salt, spices, butter, and cider vinegar, then baking slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Fish

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. Clean, dry, and cut the fish into convenient sizes for packing in a stone jar.

Pack the jar

  1. Cover the bottom of the jar with slices of fish, sprinkle with salt, pepper, allspice, cloves, mace, and bits of butter.

  2. Add more layers of fish and spices until the jar is nearly filled.

  3. Cover with cider vinegar, but not too strong.

Bake

  1. Put a tight cover on the jar and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for six hours.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh fish
Forms the body of the dish, becoming tender and flaky during long, slow cooking.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the fish as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cover with cider vinegar, but not too strong. Vinegar that is too strong can make the fish taste sharp and harsh. A moderate acidity seasons the fish and helps keep it moist during the long bake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, allspice, clove, butter, cider, 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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