Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Fresh Herrings
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and dry the herring thoroughly.
Dredge the herring with flour.
Cook and serve
Broil the herring over low heat until fully cooked.
Serve with melted butter in a dish.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh herring
- Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavor of the fish.
- Flour
- Dries the surface and helps form a light coating that browns during cooking.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and moisture when served alongside the cooked fish.
The step that matters
Broil the herring over low heat until fully cooked. Low heat cooks the fish gently so it becomes done through without drying out or burning the flour coating on the surface.
“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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