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Potted Fish

A fish dish preserved in vinegar and spices, baked in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Potted Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Cut the fish into 1-inch thick slices and pack them in a jar in layers.

  2. Between the layers, add cloves, peppercorns, mace, bay leaf, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the fish with a mixture of vinegar and water, half and half.

  2. Place a buttered paper over the top or seal the jar with paste.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 4 to 5 hours.

  4. Serve cold or hot.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Mace and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the body of the dish, which softens and becomes tender during long slow cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fish in the jar.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and draws out moisture, helping it keep its firm texture.

The step that matters

Sealing the jar before baking. A tight seal, using buttered paper or paste, traps steam and keeps the liquid around the fish. If the jar leaks, the fish can dry out during the long bake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, clove, vinegar, butter. 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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