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Herring, with Brown Sauce

A dish of fried herring served with a brown sauce made from onion, bacon, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 27,232 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Herring, with Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Clean the herring and salt it, then wipe it dry.

  2. Roll the herring in flour and grated bread.

Fry the herring

  1. Fry the herring in butter or lard until golden brown.

Make the brown sauce

  1. Chop the onion and cut the bacon into small pieces.

  2. Simmer the onion and bacon until the bacon is soft.

  3. Add the flour and stir, then add the water and boil to a short, brownish sauce.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

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

  5. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Herring
The fish is the main component, cooked until firm and golden on the outside.
Flour
Coats the fish and thickens the sauce so it becomes short and brownish.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the fish when fried.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the sauce as it softens with the onion.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth to the sauce as it simmers.
Butter or lard
Fat for frying that browns the coated herring and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Fry the herring until golden brown. The flour and bread coating must be dry and the fat hot enough to brown the crust quickly; otherwise the coating turns soggy or greasy and the fish can overcook before it browns.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, butter, pepper, white wine, vinegar, fish):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, butter, pepper, white wine, vinegar, fish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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