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Pickled Herring

Pickled herring with onions, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pickled Herring

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Soak the herring in water for 12 hours.

  2. Remove the skin and clean the herring.

  3. Cut the herring into small pieces.

Pickle

  1. Place the herring in an earthen pot with sliced onions and spices.

  2. Lay the bay leaves over the mixture.

  3. Pour enough vinegar to cover the herring.

  4. Let it stand for at least 24 hours before using.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  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 body of the dish; soaking draws out the salt from the cured fish.
Vinegar
Its acidity preserves the fish and gives the pickle its sharp, clean flavour.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma, softening their bite as they sit in the brine.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle herbal aroma that infuses into the vinegar and fish.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt herring. Salt herring is heavily cured, so soaking it for the full time removes excess salt. Too little soaking leaves the fish harshly salty, and the vinegar cannot balance that salt.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, 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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