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Red Herrings and Other Dried Fish

A method for preparing dried fish, such as herring, by soaking, broiling or boiling and basting with sweet oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and whiting match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Red Herrings and Other Dried Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried fish in lukewarm water until softened; soak larger fish for 12 hours and smaller fish for 2 hours.

  2. Hang the fish by the tails until ready to cook.

Broil

  1. If broiling, flour the fish and place it on a grill over a charcoal fire, keeping a distance for gradual cooking.

  2. Baste the fish with sweet oil using a feather, turning until cooked through and slightly swollen.

Boil

  1. If boiling, cook the larger fish until done.

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. Haddock + whitingtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + whitingtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Fish + haddocktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Haddock + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together401 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Whiting + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried fish
Forms the main body of the dish; soaking rehydrates it so it becomes tender and flaky when cooked.
Sweet oil
Adds moisture and fat during basting, keeping the surface from drying and helping it brown.
Flour
Coats the fish so the surface browns and crisps over the fire.

The step that matters

Soak the fish fully before cooking. Soaking rehydrates the dried fish so its proteins relax and it cooks tender. A shortened soak leaves the flesh tough and dry, so the times for larger and smaller fish matter.

“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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