Name: To Dress Red Herrings
Ingredients: large red herrings; boiling small beer; cold butter; sweet oil (optional); mashed potatoes; egg sauce or buttered eggs

Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Dress Red Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the red herrings open and soak them in boiling small beer for 30 minutes.
Drain the herrings and heat them gently over the fire until hot.
Rub cold butter over the herrings before serving.
Serve with mashed potatoes and egg sauce or buttered eggs.
If desired, drizzle a small amount of sweet oil over the herrings while heating.

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.

Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Beer + potatotop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together145 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beer + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together680 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).