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To Pickle Herrings or Mackerel

A method of pickling herring or mackerel with salt, pepper, spices, vinegar, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Pickle Herrings or Mackerel

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and cut off the heads of the fish.

  2. Wash and dry them thoroughly.

  3. Cut them open and remove the bones.

  4. Season the inside with coarse sea salt, ground white pepper, cayenne, cloves, and powdered mace.

Pickle and bake

  1. Layer the fish in a pan, placing 2-3 bay leaves between each layer.

  2. Cover the fish with vinegar and tie paper over the pan.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for a long time.

  4. Once done, remove the paper and let the fish cool.

  5. Pour off the vinegar, adding fresh vinegar with an onion stuck with cloves.

  6. Return to the slow oven for 2 hours and let cool again.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Herring or mackerel
Forms the body of the dish, becoming firm and flaky during slow baking.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fish and gives the pickled sharp flavour.
Bay leaves
Adds a subtle aromatic herbal note that perfumes the fish as it pickles.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the fresh vinegar bath used for the second bake.

The step that matters

Slow baking in vinegar. The oven must stay low so the fish cooks gently and holds its shape rather than breaking apart. Vinegar softens the bones and flavours the flesh as it cooks slowly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, mace, vinegar, onion. 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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