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To Dress Red Herrings

Red herrings soaked in boiling beer, then heated and buttered, served with egg sauce or mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beer and butter work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 680 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

To Dress Red Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the red herrings open.

  2. Pour boiling small beer over them.

  3. Let them soak for 30 minutes.

  4. Drain them dry.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat them just until hot over the fire.

  2. Rub cold butter over the herrings.

  3. Serve with egg-sauce or 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. Beer + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Beer + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together464 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Red herrings
Provide the main fish flesh and savoury flavour that the dish is built around.
Small beer
Soaks into the herrings, adding moisture and a mild malty flavour.
Cold butter
Melts over the warm herrings, adding richness and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Heat them just until hot over the fire. Red herrings are already cured and dry out and toughen when overheated. Warming them only until hot keeps them moist and tender.

“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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