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Herring Pie

A savory pie with herring, apple, onion, and spices baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Herring Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Scale, gut, and clean the herring, then remove heads, fins, and tails.

  3. Make a pie crust and cover your dish with it.

Assemble

  1. Season the herring with mace, pepper, and salt.

  2. Place butter at the bottom of the dish, then add a row of herring.

  3. Dice the apple and onion, and layer them over the herring.

Bake

  1. Add a little butter on top, pour in some water, cover with the lid, and bake well.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Herring
Forms the main filling, with rich flesh that becomes tender as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the fish moist in the covered dish.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and moisture that softens as the pie bakes.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it cooks with the fish.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor that complements the fish.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the dish. Covering traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own juices and the water. Baking long enough ensures the fish is cooked through and the layers are tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, apple, onion, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, apple, onion, pepper. 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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