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Herrings Sauce Dijon

Grilled herrings served with a sauce of butter, flour, milk, mustard, lemon, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Herrings Sauce Dijon

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the herring

  1. Trim and score the herrings, then dust with salt and pepper.

  2. Roll the herrings in flour and grill in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then add 1 tablespoon of flour, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  2. Stir in the boiling milk and cook while stirring.

  3. Add the French mustard, lemon juice, and cream, and heat until hot.

Serve

  1. Serve the grilled herrings on a hot, buttered dish with the sauce poured over or on the side, along with plain baked potatoes.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
The oily fish is the main element, cooked through by the hot grill and seasoned on the surface.
Flour
Dusting the herrings helps the skin brown and crisp in the hot oven.
Butter
Melted with flour to form the roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Milk
Boiled and stirred into the roux, it forms the body of the creamy sauce.
French mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the butter and cream.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts through the fattiness of the fish.

The step that matters

Stir in the boiling milk and keep stirring. Adding hot liquid to a flour and butter roux while stirring keeps it smooth; if stirring stops, the flour clumps into lumps and the sauce thickens unevenly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, butter, milk, lemon, cream, potato):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, milk, lemon, cream, potato. 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.

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