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Baked Herrings

Baked herrings seasoned with cloves, allspice, mace, cayenne, vinegar, and salt, then baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the herrings

  1. Remove the heads, tails, and fins from the herrings.

  2. Separate the flesh from the backbone and remove it.

  3. Sprinkle the insides of the herrings with a little coarse sea salt.

  4. Roll the herrings tightly from the tail end upwards.

Bake and serve

  1. Pack the rolled herrings closely in a pudding dish.

  2. Add the cloves, allspice, mace, vinegar, and enough water to cover the herrings, using only one-third vinegar.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.

  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. Clove + allspicetop 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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 rolling them holds the shape while they cook.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fish in the pickling liquid.
Allspice berries
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contribute a strong, aromatic spice flavour to the cooking liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderate oven. Fish is delicate and overbaking toughens the flesh and dries it out. Holding the herrings at a moderate heat for the stated time, in enough liquid, cooks them through while keeping them moist and tender.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, 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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