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Herrings, Curried

A dish of herrings simmered in a curry-flavored sauce with onion, butter, wine, and fish stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Herrings, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herrings

  1. Cut the heads off the herrings, bone them, and remove the roes.

  2. Place the herrings in a pan of slightly acidulated water and bring to a boil.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a saucepan, brown the chopped onion in butter.

  2. Add the curry powder to the onion and stir for a few seconds.

  3. Pour in the white wine and a little fish stock, then add parsley, bay leaf, and salt.

  4. Let the mixture boil, then arrange the herrings and roes in the saucepan.

  5. Ensure the herrings are just covered by the sauce.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring to a boil again, cover, and remove from heat after about 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the herrings and roes with a fish slicer and place on a hot dish.

  3. Strain the sauce over the herrings and serve.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. White wine + fishtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, 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, with their flesh cooking gently in the sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it browns, providing the base flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the curry powder's flavour and adds richness to the sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma that defines the dish; blooming it briefly in fat brings out its flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity that balances the rich butter and spices in the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the herrings just covered and cook briefly. Fish flesh is delicate and toughens and breaks apart when overcooked. Keeping the herrings just covered by a gently simmering sauce and removing the pan from heat after about 10 minutes helps them stay moist and intact.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, white wine, fish):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, white wine, fish. 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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