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Potted Herring

A preserved herring layered with spices and cold vinegar, then baked overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Herring

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Clean the herring, wash them well, and wipe them dry.

  2. Rub each herring with coarse sea salt and Cayenne pepper.

Layer and cover

  1. In a jar, place a layer of herring, then add grains of allspice, half a dozen cloves, and two or three blades of mace.

  2. Continue layering herring and spices until all are in the jar.

  3. Cover the herring with cold vinegar.

  4. Tie the jar tightly with several layers of paper.

Bake and set

  1. Place the jar in the oven after removing the bread and let it remain there overnight.

  2. Once cooled, the herring will be ready for use.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Herring
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming firm and tender as it cooks slowly.
Cold vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fish and sharpens its flavour during the long soak.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the fish before it is layered and covered.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour that permeates the fish as it sits in the vinegar.

The step that matters

Covering the jar tightly before the overnight oven stay. A tight seal with layered paper keeps the vinegar and spices contained and the fish moist during the long, slow heat, so the herring cooks evenly rather than drying out.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, 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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