Why it works: Onion and lime are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,263 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Red Herring Burta
Ingredients
Directions
Warm the red herring on a gridiron or frying pan, keeping it in its original paper packing.
Remove the skin and carefully pick out all the bones.
Bruise the herring and mix it thoroughly with the sliced onions, chilies, and lime juice.
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.
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Onion + limetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,263 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 herring
- Provides the main fish flesh, which gives the dish its body and savory base.
- Onions
- Add sharp, sweet aroma and crunch that balance the rich fish.
- Chilies
- Add heat and pungent flavor that cuts through the fish.
- Lime juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and firms the fish's texture.
The step that matters
Pick out all the bones. Fine bones are easy to miss once the skin is removed, and leftover bones are a choking hazard. Checking carefully before bruising and mixing keeps them out of the finished dish.
“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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