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Fresh Herrings

Grilled fresh herrings served with a mustard sauce made from baked flour, butter, boiling water, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fresh Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Grill the herring

  1. Remove the gills from the herrings and place them on a grill over a bright fire.

  2. Broil for 10 to 12 minutes, depending on size.

Make the mustard sauce

  1. For the sauce, knead the baked flour and mustard powder with the butter.

  2. Stir in the boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the vinegar and serve the sauce hot with the herrings.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh herrings
The main fish, whose oily flesh grills quickly and carries the flavour of the dish.
Baked flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the boiling water, giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and helps bind the flour and mustard.
Mustard powder
Provides the sharp, pungent flavour that defines the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce and balances its heaviness.

The step that matters

Stir in the boiling water and boil for 5 minutes. The flour must be fully wetted and then boiled so its starch swells and thickens evenly. Adding water too slowly or not boiling long enough leaves lumps and a raw, floury taste.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, vinegar. 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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