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Quaker Potted Herring

A pickled herring preserved in a rye flour dough and cider vinegar with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Quaker Potted Herring

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herrings

  1. Wash and scale the herrings.

  2. Cut off the heads and tails.

  3. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the herrings.

  4. Let them stand for a few hours.

  5. Drain the herrings and wipe them dry.

Pickle and seal

  1. Make a thin dough with rye flour and water.

  2. Line a stone jar with the dough.

  3. Place the herrings nicely in the jar.

  4. Boil enough cider vinegar to cover the herrings, adding cloves, allspice, black pepper, and mace.

  5. Pour the boiling vinegar over the herrings.

  6. Cover the jar immediately with the dough.

  7. The next day, transfer the herrings to a clean jar and seal it.

Serve

  1. Slice and serve like souse‑cheese.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 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
The main fish, which is firmed and seasoned by the salt and then softened and preserved by the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Acidity that preserves the fish and gives it its sharp, tangy flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the fish and firms its flesh before pickling.
Rye flour
Forms a thin dough that seals the jar and protects the contents from air.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling vinegar over the herrings and cover immediately. Hot vinegar penetrates the fish and helps preserve it, while sealing the jar straight away keeps air out and holds the heat and aroma in.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, flour, cider, vinegar, clove, allspice, pepper. 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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