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Herring Sauce

A sauce made from soaked herring, egg yolks, olive oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Herring Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Soak the herring in milk overnight.

  2. Remove the bones and chop the herring finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the chopped herring with the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Add olive oil and vinegar, and stir until well combined.

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. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Milk + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,828 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + vinegartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Herring
Provides the main fish flavor and the chopped body of the sauce.
Milk
Soaking in milk mellows the herring's strong, salty flavor.
Egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying proteins help bind the oil and vinegar into a smooth, rich mixture.
Olive oil
Adds fat for a silky texture and a mellow richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the fish and yolks.

The step that matters

Adding the oil and vinegar. Stir the oil and vinegar in until combined. The egg yolks help hold the oil and liquid together in a smooth, uniform sauce; if the oil is added too fast or stirring is too brief, the sauce can separate.

“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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