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Fresh Herrings Marinaded in White Wine

Fresh herrings marinated in a white wine and vinegar sauce with onion, carrot, herbs, and peppercorns, then poached and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fresh Herrings Marinaded in White Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marinade

  1. Combine white wine, vinegar, onion, carrot, herbs, salt, and peppercorns in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Poach and serve

  1. Place cleaned herrings in a separate saucepan and pour the boiling marinade over them.

  2. Poach the herrings for 15 minutes.

  3. Serve very cold with the marinade, carrot roundels, and thin strips of onion.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  3. White wine + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. White wine + carrottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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, becoming firm and flaky when poached in the acidic marinade.
White wine
Provides liquid and aromatic flavour that carries the herbs and vegetables into the fish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps firm the fish's flesh.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and sweetness to the marinade and garnish.

The step that matters

Pour the marinade over the herrings at a gentle poach. Herring is delicate, and a hard boil breaks up the flesh and toughens it. Keeping the marinade just below a boil lets the fish cook evenly and stay intact.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, onion):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, onion. 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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