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Baked Herrings and Sprats

A baked dish of herrings and sprats seasoned with allspice, salt, cloves, pepper, onion, bay leaves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Baked Herrings and Sprats

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and drain the herrings and sprats without wiping them.

  2. Season with allspice, salt, and whole cloves.

Bake and serve

  1. Lay them in a pan with plenty of black pepper, an onion, and bay leaves.

  2. Add vinegar and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until cooked through.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Herrings
Form the main body of the dish and carry its rich, oily flavour.
Sprats
Add small whole fish that soften and add savoury flavour as they bake.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps firm and preserve the fish.
Whole cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice that penetrates the fish during baking.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and cooks in the pan juices.

The step that matters

Add vinegar and bake until cooked through. Acid begins to firm the fish proteins while heat cooks them. Baking until the fish is fully cooked, not just firmed, makes it safe to eat and gives a tender, flaky texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, clove, pepper, 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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