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Kippered Herring

A layered stew of kippered herring, clams, onions, and vegetables simmered in clam juice and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Kippered Herring

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In an iron pot, fry the chopped onions in butter or drippings until golden.

  2. Layer the fish, free from bones, over the onions.

  3. Sprinkle the sweet pepper, celery, parsley, spices, salt, and pepper over the fish.

  4. Add the clams, tomatoes, and broken sea biscuits in layers.

  5. Repeat layering until all ingredients are used.

Stew and thicken

  1. Pour in the strained clam juice and add cold water to cover the fish.

  2. Stew gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Remove solids with a soup strainer to a deep dish, leaving the sauce in the pot.

  4. Add red wine and a mixture of corn starch or flour with cold water to the sauce.

  5. Boil the sauce for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve the dish with some sauce strained over it and the remaining sauce in a sauceboat.

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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Red wine + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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 stew and flakes into the sauce as it cooks.
Onions
Build sweetness and a golden flavor base when fried in fat.
Clams
Add briny, savory flavor to the stew and its clam juice sauce.
Sea biscuits
Break down in the broth to add body and help thicken the sauce.
Stewed tomatoes
Contribute acidity and moisture that balance the rich fish and clams.
Corn starch or flour (in the method)
Thickens the sauce when boiled with the liquid, giving it body.

The step that matters

Boiling the thickened sauce. Starch must be boiled to fully gelatinize and thicken the sauce; stirring frequently prevents scorching and lumps on the pot bottom.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, red wine, fish, butter, clam, tomato, biscuit):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, red wine, fish, butter, clam, tomato, biscuit. 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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