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Scalloped Bloater

A baked herring dish layered with peppercorns, onion, breadcrumbs, and butter, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Bloater

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the herring

  1. Flake the salted herrings, removing bones and skin.

  2. Layer the herring in a tin baking dish.

Layer the dish

  1. Add peppercorns and sprinkle chopped onion over the herring.

  2. Add a layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is full, finishing with bread crumbs and bits of butter or dripping.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  2. Drizzle with lemon juice before serving, if desired.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted herrings
Provide the main fish flavour and the body of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Form layers that soak up juices and brown to a golden crust.
Butter or good dripping
Adds fat for richness and helps the top crust turn golden.
Finely chopped onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it cooks.

The step that matters

Finishing with bread crumbs and fat. Crumbs and bits of butter or dripping on top need to cover the surface evenly, because the fat is what browns the crust in the oven and keeps the top from drying out.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, bread, butter):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, bread, butter. 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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