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Kippered Herring, Scotch Style

Smoked herrings are floured, broiled, seasoned with black pepper, and served with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Kippered Herring, Scotch Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the head and tail of the smoked herrings.

  2. Dust both sides with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Grease a gridiron and place the herrings on it.

  2. Broil over a sharp fire.

  3. Season with black pepper.

  4. Serve with a small piece of butter on each fish.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked herrings
Form the main body of the dish, carrying its smoky flavour as the centrepiece.
Flour
Dusting on the surface helps the fish brown lightly during broiling.
Butter
Melts over the hot fish, adding richness and moisture to the flesh.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that contrasts with the smoky, oily fish.

The step that matters

Broil over a sharp fire. A fierce heat cooks the fish quickly and browns the floured surface before the flesh dries out. A slow fire would toughen and dry the herring.

“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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