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To Pot Herrings

A preserved herring dish cured with salt, spices, and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

To Pot Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the herrings

  1. Choose 1 to 2 dozen large, fresh herrings.

  2. Mix 2 ounces of coarse sea salt, 1 ounce of saltpetre, and 4 ounces of allspice into a fine powder.

  3. Rub the spice mixture into the herrings and let them drain for 8 hours.

  4. Wipe off the excess spice and place the herrings in a buttered pan.

Season and bake

  1. Season the herrings with 1 ounce each of nutmeg, mace, white pepper, and salt, and add ground clove.

  2. Add 2 to 3 bay leaves to the pan.

  3. Cover the herrings with clarified butter and bake gently at 300°F (150°C) for 3 hours.

Pot and rest

  1. Once cooled, drain the liquid and pack the fish into pots.

  2. Cover the fish with clarified butter to a depth of ½ inch, ensuring it is melted but not hot.

  3. Let the fish sit for 2 days before eating.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 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

Herrings
The main fish, which the spice cure and slow baking flavour and tenderise.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the fish and seasons it through the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the fish and keeps its colour during curing.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the cured fish.
Clarified butter
Seals the fish from air and adds richness and moisture during baking and potting.

The step that matters

Baking and pouring the butter. Baking at a gentle 300°F keeps the fish moist and tender rather than dry and tough. The clarified butter cover must be melted but not hot, so it seals the fish without cooking it further or breaking into a greasy layer.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, nutmeg, mace, clove, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, nutmeg, mace, clove, 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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