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Herrings, Red, Mock Anchovy Toast of

A toast topped with sliced red herring and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Herrings, Red, Mock Anchovy Toast of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Cut the head and tail from the red herring and soak it in boiling water for 5 to 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the herring, peel off the skin, open the fish, and remove as many bones as possible.

  3. Slice half of the fish into ¼‑inch thick slices.

  4. Cut the other half of the fish into small squares.

Assemble the toast

  1. Divide the buttered toast into quarters.

  2. Place a square of herring on each quarter of toast, topping each with a slice.

  3. For sandwiches, place the herring pieces between slices of buttered bread instead of on toast.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Red herring
Provides the main savoury flavour and the flaky texture of the topping.
Bread
Forms the base that holds the fish and gives a crisp, absorbent surface.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the bread taste savoury and toasted.

The step that matters

Remove as many bones as possible. Herring has many fine pin bones that are hard to see and feel. Leaving them in risks a bone being swallowed, so each fillet should be checked carefully before slicing.

“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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