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Salt Herrings

Salted herrings soaked overnight, boiled with potatoes, served as a side or in sauces with port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Salt Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salt herrings overnight in water or a mixture of water and milk.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the soaked herrings with potatoes until cooked.

  2. Serve the herrings as a side dish or use them in sauces by dissolving in port wine.

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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Potato + port winetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt herrings
Provide the main fish flavour; soaking reduces their salt so they can be eaten.
Potatoes
Add starch for body and a mild, filling base that absorbs the herring flavour.
Port wine
Dissolves the herring into a sauce, adding sweetness and depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt herrings overnight. Salt cure is drawn out slowly by soaking in water or milk. Too short a soak leaves the herring too salty, while a long soak evens out the seasoning and softens the flesh.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, port wine):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, port wine. 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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