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Herrings Stewed

Stewed herrings simmered in stock with spices, then finished with a reduced sauce of Port wine, sauce tournee, butter, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Herrings Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the herrings

  1. Place the herrings in a kettle with enough stock to cover them.

  2. Add the cloves, salt, peppercorns, carrot, onion, garlic, bay leaf, parsley, and Port wine.

  3. Cook until the herrings are well done, then remove them and keep warm on a dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve and reduce it over heat with the sauce tournee.

  2. Once reduced, strain it again into another pan, stir in the butter and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Arrange the herrings on a dish and pour the sauce over them.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and flaky as they cook through.
Sauce tournee
Thickens the cooking liquid, giving the sauce body and a smooth, coating texture.
Port wine
Adds depth and a mildly sweet, fruity flavour to the cooking liquid and sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the reduced sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the fish.

The step that matters

Cook until the herrings are well done. Herring is an oily fish that can turn dry and firm if overcooked, while underdone flesh stays unsafe to eat. Holding the fish at a gentle simmer until it just flakes gives moist, tender results.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, garlic, parsley, port wine, sauce, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, garlic, parsley, port wine, sauce, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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