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To Dress Red Herrings

A grilled red herring served in a paper case with butter, herbs, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

To Dress Red Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the grill.

  2. Take a large sheet of thick paper, double it, and form a case to hold the herrings. Butter the paper well on both sides.

  3. Prepare the herrings by cutting off the heads and tails, skinning them, and removing the backbone. Cut the herrings in half and lay them side by side in the paper case.

Season and cook

  1. Add small lumps of fresh butter mixed with fine herbs, diced mushrooms, parsley, young onions, shallots, minced garlic, ground pepper, and a little oil.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top.

  3. Place the paper case on the grill over a clear fire, ensuring the paper does not burn.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, serve the herrings in the case with a squeeze of lemon juice.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Red herrings
Form the main body of the dish, cooking into tender, flaky fillets.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out under the grill.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns on the grill and adds texture.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and savoury flavour into the butter as they cook in the case.
Shallots
Add a mild sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften with the fish.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens with gentle heat.

The step that matters

Keeping the paper case from burning over the fire. Paper scorches at high heat, so the case must sit over a clear, moderate fire. If the paper burns through, the butter and juices leak out and the fish dries and sticks.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, parsley, onion, shallot, garlic, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, parsley, onion, shallot, garlic, pepper. 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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