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Baked Herrings and Sprats

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

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

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

  2. Gut the fish but do not open them.

  3. If desired, sprinkle saltpetre over the fish the night before to enhance color.

Season and bake

  1. Season with ground allspice, coarse sea salt, and whole cloves.

  2. Place them in a pan with plenty of black pepper, sliced onion, and bay leaves.

  3. Add vinegar and small beer to cover the fish.

  4. Cover the pan with paper and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

Cook the sprats

  1. For sprats, fasten them in tows with a skewer through the heads and broil until cooked.

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, becoming tender and flaky when slowly baked.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the rich fish and helps preserve it.
Small beer
Adds liquid and mild malty flavour, keeping the fish moist while it bakes.
Bay leaves
Contribute a herbal aroma that perfumes the fish and cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Baking in a slow oven. Low, gentle heat cooks the fish through and softens the bones without drying the flesh. Covering the pan traps steam and keeps the fish moist in the acidic liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, clove, pepper, vinegar, beer. 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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