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To Broil Fish

A recipe for broiling herring and salmon with pepper, coarse sea salt, sweet oil, and white paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and salmon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,446 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

To Broil Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herrings

  1. Open the herrings along the belly.

  2. Clean the herrings, removing the backbone but leaving the roe.

  3. Lay the two herrings together with the open sides facing each other.

  4. Season the herrings with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Broil the herrings

  1. Broil the herrings until nicely cooked.

Prepare and broil the salmon

  1. Wipe the salmon slices dry.

  2. Brush the salmon slices with sweet oil.

  3. Season the salmon with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Fold the salmon in clean white paper.

  5. Broil the salmon over a clear fire until cooked.

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 + salmontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,446 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, with the roe adding richness when left in during cleaning.
Salmon slices
Provide a second fish that is brushed with oil so it stays moist while broiling.
Sweet oil
Coats the salmon so it stays moist and browns lightly under the heat.

The step that matters

Broil the salmon over a clear fire until cooked. Salmon is lean and dries out quickly under high heat. Brushing it with oil and wrapping it in paper helps hold moisture, so it should be watched closely and removed as soon as it is cooked through.

“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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