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Herrings with Mustard Sauce

Grilled herrings served with a mustard and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Herrings with Mustard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and clean the herrings.

  2. Score them lightly along the length of the fish.

Cook and serve

  1. Soak the herrings for 10 minutes in salad oil seasoned with pepper and salt.

  2. Grill the herrings over a clear fire.

  3. Melt the butter and stir in the mustard.

  4. Serve the herrings with the mustard sauce poured over them.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. 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
Form the main body of the dish and carry the smoky char from the grill.
Salad oil
Carries the pepper and salt into the fish and helps keep the flesh moist on the grill.
Butter
Melts into a rich, smooth base for the mustard sauce.
Raw mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts the richness of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Grill the herrings over a clear fire. Herring is oily and delicate, so it can stick or dry out if the fire flares or is uneven. A clear, steady heat cooks the flesh through while keeping the skin crisp and the fish moist.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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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