Name: Fresh Herrings
Ingredients: Fresh herrings; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Pounded mace; Butter; Flour; Mustard; Vinegar or lemon juice

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fresh Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Scale and clean the fish thoroughly.
Split the fish open and wash the insides carefully.
Dry the fish with a cloth, then remove the heads, tails, and backbones.
Rub the insides with pepper, salt, and a little pounded mace.
Place small bits of butter inside each fish and skewer two fish together with the skin facing out.
Flour the fish and broil for 20 to 25 minutes or fry for about 10 minutes until golden brown.
Serve with melted butter mixed with mustard, salt, and a splash of vinegar or lemon juice.

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.

Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,066 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Butter and flour 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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, mustard, vinegar):

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Turmericfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, mustard, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.