Name: Stuffed Herring
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon oatmeal; 1 tablespoon melted dripping; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon seasoning; 1 teaspoon chopped onion; 2 herrings

Why it works: Parsley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stuffed Herring

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Bone the herrings and place one herring skin side down on a greased baking tray.
Mix oatmeal, melted dripping, parsley, seasoning, and onion to create the stuffing.

Assemble and bake

Spread the stuffing on top of the first herring and place the second herring skin side up on top.
Dot the top with small pats of dripping.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Serve

Serve hot, garnished with parsley.

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.

Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 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

Herrings: Form the main body of the dish, holding the stuffing between two fillets as it bakes.
Oatmeal: Absorbs the melted fat and binds the stuffing so it stays moist rather than greasy.
Dripping: Adds fat that keeps the fish moist and helps the top brown in the oven.
Onion: Adds aromatic flavour that mellows and sweetens slightly as it cooks.

“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.