Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fried Herrings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean and wipe the herring.
Lightly season with pepper and salt, then coat with flour.
Fry
Heat sufficient boiling dripping in a frying pan to cover the herring.
Fry the herring for 7 to 10 minutes, depending on its size.
Drain and serve
Remove the herring and place it on a dish before the fire for 1-2 minutes to drain excess fat.
Transfer to a hot dish and serve.
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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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Herring
- Provides the main body of the dish, cooked through by frying in hot fat.
- Flour
- Forms a light coating that browns and crisps in the hot fat.
- Dripping
- Hot fat that transfers heat to the fish, browning the coating and crisping the skin.
The step that matters
Frying time. Frying time depends on the fish's size, so a larger herring can be left raw inside or a smaller one overcooked. Checking the fish near the stated range helps it cook through while the coating stays golden and crisp.
“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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