Skip to main content
Main

Herrings, Baked

A baked herring dish seasoned with salt, pepper, cloves, vinegar, and hay leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Herrings, Baked

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. Rub the cleaned herrings all over with salt, pepper, and pounded cloves.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the herrings in a deep earthen pan and cover them with vinegar.

  2. Add hay leaves and cover the dish with thick paper tied around it.

  3. Bake for 1 to 1 hour and 10 minutes, depending on the oven heat.

  4. Serve cold.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 becomes tender and flavorful as it bakes slowly in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that softens the fish and gives the finished dish its tangy flavor.
Pounded cloves
Aromatic spice that adds warm, sharp flavor to the fish.
Salt
Seasons the fish and helps draw flavor into its flesh.

The step that matters

Covering the dish tightly before baking. The paper cover traps steam and keeps the herrings moist during the long, slow bake. If it leaks, the liquid evaporates and the fish can dry out before it becomes tender.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

More baked herrings recipes

and Sprats 5 See all 6 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes