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Potted Herrings

A preserved fish dish where herrings are boiled, seasoned, and baked in butter and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Potted Herrings

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 herring

  1. Boil the 8 herrings until tender, then remove the bones.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter, anchovy sauce, and salt if needed.

  3. Place the mixture into pots and cover with fat.

Bake and serve

  1. In a pie dish, place the fresh herrings.

  2. Mix the vinegar, water, salt, parsley, sugar, cloves, bay leaf, and onion, then pour over the herrings.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 40 minutes.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 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

Herrings
Provide the main flesh, which turns tender and flaky when boiled and baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the potted mixture a smooth, spreadable texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fish.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury depth that enriches the butter mixture.

The step that matters

Baking the fresh herrings in the slow oven. Slow baking in a seasoned vinegar liquid cooks the fish gently so it becomes tender without drying or breaking apart. Too high a heat can toughen the flesh and dry it out.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, sauce, vinegar, parsley, sugar, onion):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, sauce, vinegar, parsley, sugar, 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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