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Fish Baked in Vinegar

A preserved herring dish baked slowly in vinegar with peppercorns, mace, shallot, and bay leaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,374 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fish Baked in Vinegar

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and clean the herrings thoroughly in cold water.

  2. Cut the fish into thick pieces and lay them close together in a stone jar.

Season and cover

  1. Add the peppercorns and salt to the fish. Include the blade of mace and bay leaf.

  2. Peel the shallot and add it to the fish, adjusting the amount to taste.

  3. Pour in the vinegar and tightly cover the jar with brown paper secured with string.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the jar in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) to bake for six hours, or leave it in a baker's oven overnight.

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. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mace + shallottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
The main fish, which becomes tender and flaky as it cooks slowly in the acidic liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity that softens the fish and preserves it while it bakes.
Shallot
Adds a mild onion-like aroma that mellows during the long, slow bake.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and draws out moisture to firm its texture.

The step that matters

Keeping the jar tightly covered. A tight seal traps steam and keeps the vinegar and seasonings in contact with the fish during the long, slow bake, so the fish cooks gently and evenly rather than drying out.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, 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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