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Broiled Herrings

Broiled herrings served with butter sauce, egg sauce, and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Broiled Herrings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Broil and serve

  1. Flour the herrings.

  2. Broil them until they are a good color.

  3. Serve with plain butter as a sauce.

Dress and finish

  1. For dressing, choose large, moist herrings.

  2. Cut them open.

  3. Soak in boiling small beer for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain and heat them before the fire.

  5. Rub with cold butter before serving.

  6. Serve with egg sauce or buttered eggs and mashed 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Beer + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Butter + beertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Herrings
The fish itself, providing the main flesh that is broiled and served.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns more evenly and develops a golden crust under heat.
Plain butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and keeping the fish moist when served.
Eggs
Form the egg sauce or buttered eggs, where they set gently to add body and richness.

The step that matters

Broil until a good color. Floured fish browns through Maillard reactions, which need steady heat. Leaving it too long dries the flesh, so watch for color rather than time alone.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, beer, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, beer, egg. 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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