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Potted Herring

A preserved fish dish made by layering salted fish with spices, vinegar, and red pepper, then baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Potted Herring

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

  1. Clean the fish and remove the heads.

  2. Salt the fish.

Layer and seal

  1. In an earthen jar, layer the fish and sprinkle with the spice mixture: cinnamon, pepper, allspice, cloves, mace, and butter.

  2. Add another layer of fish and repeat the sprinkling.

  3. Pour enough vinegar over the fish to cover it.

  4. Add pieces of red pepper between each layer.

  5. Cover the jar with a crust made of flour and water to seal it.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for six hours.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during the long, slow bake.
Vinegar
Acidity that helps preserve the fish and gives it a sharp, tangy flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, softening the fish and rounding out the spices.
Flour
Forms a sealing crust that traps steam and keeps the fish moist during baking.

The step that matters

Covering the jar with a sealed crust. A tight flour-and-water seal keeps the vinegar and steam inside the jar. Gaps let moisture escape and the fish dry out or spoil during the long bake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, cinnamon, pepper, allspice, clove, butter, walnut):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, cinnamon, pepper, allspice, clove, butter, walnut. 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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