Why it works: Mustard and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,003 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Herrings, with Mustard Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Scale and empty the herrings.
Cut off their heads and tails.
Open them and take out the backbone.
Prepare a mustard sauce with butter.
Serve the herrings with the mustard sauce.
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.
-
Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,003 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.