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Cold Rock Fish, Soused

A dish of cold fish marinated in vinegar and spices.

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 ↓

Cold Rock Fish, Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones from the cold fish.

  2. Season the fish with Cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, allspice, cloves, and mace.

  3. Place the fish in a deep dish.

Pickle and serve

  1. Boil enough vinegar to cover the fish and pour it over the fish while hot.

  2. Let it sit for twelve hours before serving.

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

Vinegar
Acidifies the fish, firming its flesh and giving the sharp, preserved flavour of soused fish.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and draws out moisture, firming its texture before pickling.
Cold fish
The main ingredient, which the vinegar penetrates and firms as it sits.

The step that matters

Pouring the vinegar while it is hot. Hot vinegar penetrates the fish more quickly and evenly than cold vinegar would, so the whole piece is covered and seasoned throughout. The fish must stay fully submerged for the twelve hours so no part is left unpickled.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, 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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