Name: Salad of Filleted Salted Herrings
Ingredients: 8 soft roes; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 4 tablespoons mayonnaise; 1 onion, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon chervil, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon chives, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon tarragon, finely chopped; cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salad of Filleted Salted Herrings

Ingredients

8 soft roes
2 tablespoons vinegar
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon chervil, finely chopped
1 tablespoon chives, finely chopped
1 tablespoon tarragon, finely chopped
cayenne pepper to taste

Directions

Prepare the herring

Remove the fillets from the salted herring and take off the skins.
Soak the fillets, then trim them.

Make the sauce

In a bowl, combine the puree of the soft roes with vinegar and mayonnaise.
Add the chopped onion, parsley, chervil, chives, and tarragon to the mixture.
Season with cayenne pepper to taste.

Serve

Dish the fillets and cover them with the sauce.
Serve chilled.

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.

Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together370 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together589 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together774 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Soft roes: Form the puréed base of the sauce, giving it body and a rich, creamy texture.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and creaminess, helping the sauce coat the fillets smoothly.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the roes and mayonnaise.
Onion: Adds sharp, aromatic flavour and a little crunch to the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, vinegar, parsley, chervil, chive, tarragon, pepper):

Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Mustardfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, vinegar, parsley, chervil, chive, tarragon, pepper. 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.