Skip to main content
Main

Red Herrings, X LA Dauphin

Red herrings, à la dauphin, are broiled fish coated in butter, egg yolks, herbs, and breadcrumbs, served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Red Herrings, X LA Dauphin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herrings

  1. Remove the heads and backbones from the herrings.

  2. Soak the herrings in warm milk for 2‑3 hours if very dry.

  3. Drain and wipe the herrings.

Coat the fish

  1. Melt the butter and mix it with the beaten egg yolks and minced herbs.

  2. Dip the fish into the mixture and coat them with bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the herrings until light brown over moderate heat.

  2. Serve on hot buttered toast, sprinkled with cayenne.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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, which is cooked through and browned under the broiler.
Egg yolks
Bind the butter and herbs into a coating that holds the bread crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the fish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the coating brown and taste rich.
Milk
Softens very dry herrings through soaking before they are coated.

The step that matters

Broil until light brown. Broiling over moderate heat browns the bread crumb coating before the fish dries out. Too much heat can scorch the crumbs while the fish stays underdone in the centre.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes