A round, golden double-crust pie with a small round hole in the center of its lid, the crust glazed golden, on a pewter plate whose rim is sprinkled with sugar, with one slice cut to show a dark filling of chopped fish, fruit and pear. — A sugar-glazed herring pie with a round vent in its lid, one slice cut.

Herring Pie with Pears and Dates (1623)

Name: Herring Pie with Pears and Dates
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 13 h 35 min
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 300 g salt herring fillets; 60 g seedless raisins; 180 g firm pear, such as Bosc (about 1 pear); 40 g currants; 30 g sugar for the filling; ½ tsp ground cinnamon for the filling; 50 g pitted dates; 40 g cold unsalted butter for the filling; 400 g shortcrust pastry; 120 ml claret or other light dry red wine; 2 tbsp verjuice; 15 g sugar for the liquor; ¼ tsp ground cinnamon for the liquor; 15 g unsalted butter for the liquor; 2 tbsp sugar for the lid and dish

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Gervase Markham’s 1623 herring pie: soaked salt herring chopped with pear, dried fruit, sugar and cinnamon, baked in pastry and finished with claret.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 31, 2026

Recipe makes: One 20 cm pie, 6 servings
Prep: 45 min
Cook: 50 min
Total: 13 hr 35 min

The salt herring soaks for 12 hours in the refrigerator first, so start the night before. Then allow about 45 minutes to poach, bone and chop, and 50 minutes in the oven.

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A sugar-glazed herring pie with a round vent in its lid, one slice cut.

The story behind the recipe

Gervase Markham’s herring pie turns barrel fish into a sweet, spiced dish for a well-kept house, with sugar candied on the lid and claret poured in through a hole in the crust. It is printed among his pies in The English Huswife, the household book in his Countrey Contentments, in the London edition of 1623. That is more than forty years before the Dutch war of 1665, and no table of the war is tied to it, but its fish starts out salted, the way the Dutch busses brought their herring home in barrels.

Whose recipe was it?

Markham did not claim the whole book as his own. His dedication, to Frances, Countess Dowager of Exeter, admits that “much of it was a Manuscript which many yeeres agon belonged to an Honourable Contesse,” gathered, he says, from the opinions of the greatest physicians of her day. He doesn’t say which recipes came from it, so the herring pie may be older than his book.

The pie is sweet from end to end. Besides the fish it holds raisins of the sun, “a warden or two,” the old English baking pear, currants, dates, sugar, cinnamon and “good store of very sweete butter.” A hot liquor of claret and verjuice goes in after the first baking, and even the rim of the dish gets its sugar. Markham sends the cook to “bake it like pies of that nature,” trusting that readers already knew how.

Making it today

A buttery shortcrust stands in for Markham’s coffin, and all the amounts are ours, since he gives only “good store” and “a little.” The oven heat and times are ours too, set against modern fish pies baked in shortcrust. Seedless raisins save the stoning, and a firm Bosc pear takes the place of the warden. We use whole soaked fillets where Markham keeps only the backs. Verjuice, the sour juice of unripe grapes, is sold in bottles; sugar sprinkled on the lid before the pie goes back in the oven gives the candied top.

What Happened to the Dutch Herring Fishery in the War of 1665? tells what that war did to the fishery that filled such barrels. For the barrel herring in its plainest form, cook Stewed Salt Herring with Onion (1653).

Take white pickled Herrings of one nights watering, and boyle them a little: then pill of the skin, and take onely the backs of them, and picke the fish cleane from the bones, then take good store off raysins of the Sunne, and stone them, and put them to the fish: then take a warden or two, and pare it, and slice it in small slices from the chore, and put it likewise to the fish: then with a very sharpe shredding knife shred all as small and fine as may be: then put to it good store of currants, suger, cinamon, slic’t dates, and so put it into the coffin with good store of very sweete butter, and so couer it, and leaue only a round vent-hole on the top of the lid, and so bake it like pies of that nature: When it is sufficiently bak’t, draw it out, and take Clarret-wine and a little veriuyce, suger, cinamon, and sweete butter, and boyle them together; then put it in at the vent-hole, and shake the pie a little, and put it againe into the Ouen for a little space, and so serue it vp, the lid being candied ouer with suger, and the sides of the dish trimmed with Suger.

Gervase MarkhamCountrey Contentments, or The English Huswife (London: I. B. for R. Jackson, 1623), p. 100

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Ingredients

For One 20 cm pie, 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for One 20 cm pie, 6 servings.

Salt herring fillets300 g
Seedless raisins60 g
Firm pear, such as Bosc (about 1 pear)180 g
Currants40 g
Sugar for the filling30 g
Ground cinnamon for the filling1/2 tsp
Pitted dates50 g
Cold unsalted butter for the filling40 g
Shortcrust pastry400 g
Claret or other light dry red wine120 ml
Verjuice2 tbsp
Sugar for the liquor15 g
Ground cinnamon for the liquor1/4 tsp
Unsalted butter for the liquor15 g
Sugar for the lid and dish2 tbsp

Ingredients as written here

300 g salt herring fillets
60 g seedless raisins
180 g firm pear, such as Bosc (about 1 pear)
40 g currants
30 g sugar for the filling
½ tsp ground cinnamon for the filling
50 g pitted dates
40 g cold unsalted butter for the filling
400 g shortcrust pastry
120 ml claret or other light dry red wine
2 tbsp verjuice
15 g sugar for the liquor
¼ tsp ground cinnamon for the liquor
15 g unsalted butter for the liquor
2 tbsp sugar for the lid and dish

Equipment

Large bowl with a cover
Wide saucepan or sauté pan
Large chef’s knife and cutting board, or a food processor
20 cm (8-inch) pie dish, about 4 cm deep
Small saucepan
Small funnel
Instant-read thermometer

Instructions

The night before, put the salt herring fillets in the large bowl and cover them generously with cold water. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 12 hours, pouring off the water and adding fresh cold water twice.
Drain the herring. Bring a wide pan of water to a simmer, slip in the fillets and poach them gently for 3 to 4 minutes, until opaque and the thickest part reads 63°C (145°F). Lift them out and let them cool for a few minutes.
Peel off the skin and pick the flesh away from the bones, feeling carefully for the fine ones.
Heat the oven to 190°C (375°F) with a rack in the lower third.
Put the herring on the cutting board with the seedless raisins. Peel and core the firm pear, slice it thinly, and add it. Chop everything together until very fine, or pulse it in the food processor in short bursts until finely chopped but not a paste.
Scrape the mixture into a bowl and stir in the currants, the sugar for the filling and the ground cinnamon for the filling. Slice the pitted dates thinly and stir them in.
Roll out two-thirds of the shortcrust pastry and line the pie dish. Spoon in the filling and level it. Cut the cold unsalted butter for the filling into small pieces and scatter them over the top.
Roll out the rest of the pastry for the lid, lay it over the filling, trim and press the edges together to seal. Cut a round vent about 2 cm (¾ inch) across in the center of the lid.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden.
While the pie bakes, put the claret, verjuice, sugar for the liquor, ground cinnamon for the liquor and unsalted butter for the liquor in the small saucepan, bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute.
Take the pie out of the oven. Set the funnel in the vent and pour in the hot liquor slowly, letting it sink in. Tilt the dish gently from side to side to spread it.
Sprinkle half the sugar for the lid and dish over the lid and return the pie to the oven for 10 minutes, until the sugar has melted to a glaze and the filling reads 74°C (165°F) through the vent.
Sprinkle the rest of the sugar around the rim of the serving dish, set the pie on it, and serve hot.

Nutrition

640calories per serving

Recipe makes: One 20 cm pie, 6 servings
Servings: 6

Estimated per serving (6) from USDA FoodData Central values for raw Atlantic herring (standing in for soaked salt herring), pear, raisins, currants, dates, sugar, butter, red wine and commercial shortcrust pastry.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Sized for a 20 cm (8-inch) pie dish. For a 23 cm (9-inch) dish, scale to about 1.3 times and bake 5 to 10 minutes longer.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Markham gives no amounts, pastry, dish size, oven heat or times: every quantity is ours, along with the shortcrust, the 20 cm dish, the 190°C (375°F) oven and the timings. Our other changes: seedless raisins replace stoned raisins of the sun, a Bosc pear replaces the warden, whole soaked fillets replace the backs alone, and the pie is tilted where Markham shakes it. Use salt-cured herring, sold in dry salt or brine; vinegar-pickled herring such as rollmops will not work. If you can’t find verjuice, use 1 tbsp lemon juice, which is sharper. Without wine, red grape juice with an extra spoonful of verjuice keeps the color and some of the tartness. The liquor boils only briefly, so the pie keeps some of the wine’s alcohol. Keep the herring at 4°C (40°F) or below while it soaks. Fish should reach 63°C (145°F), and leftovers and casseroles 74°C (165°F), as the US government’s safe minimum temperature chart advises. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours, eat them within 3 days and reheat to 74°C (165°F). Contains fish, milk (butter) and gluten (pastry); the wine and dried fruit may contain sulfites.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.