Skip to main content
Main

Baked Herrings

A simple baked herring dish seasoned with salt, pepper, milk, and Scotch oatmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26,984 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Baked Herrings

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 the herrings

  1. Remove the heads from the herrings and split them open.

  2. Take out the backbones.

  3. Season the inside with salt and pepper.

  4. Dip the herrings in milk and dredge with Scotch oatmeal.

  5. Melt some fat and brush it over the prepared herrings.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the herrings side by side in a paper bag and fasten the end.

  2. Cook on a wire grid in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

  3. Dish up and serve.

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 + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Provide the oily fish that forms the main body of the dish.
Scotch oatmeal
Forms a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the fish.
Milk
Helps the oatmeal stick to the fish before baking.
Fat
Carries heat to the surface and encourages browning and crispness.

The step that matters

Placing the herrings in the paper bag. The bag traps steam around the fish, so it cooks gently while the coating stays in place. Fastening the end properly keeps the steam in and the oatmeal from drying or falling off.

“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.

More baked herring recipes

and Sprats 8Roe 3 See all 49 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes