Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Herrings

A boiled herring dish seasoned with vinegar, salt, parsley, butter, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

To Boil Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale and clean the herrings thoroughly.

  2. Rub the herrings with vinegar and coarse sea salt.

  3. Skewer the tails into their mouths.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the herrings for 10 to 12 minutes.

  2. Serve with parsley and melted butter, or mustard mixed with melted butter.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
The main fish, whose firm flesh holds its shape through boiling.
Vinegar
Acidity that brightens the fish and firms its flesh slightly before cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the serving sauce, balancing the lean fish.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that contrasts with the rich butter.

The step that matters

Boil the herrings for 10 to 12 minutes. Boiling too long toughens and dries the delicate flesh, while too short leaves the fish undercooked near the bone. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer helps the fish cook evenly and stay intact.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes