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Spiced Shad

A salted and spiced shad served with vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shad

  1. Split the shad open and rub it with 2 tablespoons of salt, then let it stand for several hours.

Boil

  1. Prepare a pot with boiling water, adding 1 teaspoon of salt for every quart of water.

  2. Boil the shad for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the shad from the water and drain it.

Spice and cover

  1. Bruise the allspice to crack the grains.

  2. Sprinkle the allspice and cayenne pepper over the shad.

  3. Cover it with cold vinegar.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. 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

Shad
Forms the main body of the dish, which is salted, boiled and then covered in vinegar.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the fish before it is boiled.
Vinegar
Acidity that covers and preserves the cooked fish.
Allspice
Adds warm aromatic spice to the fish.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat to the fish.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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