Skip to main content
Main

Red Herrings Grilled

Grilled red herrings coated with butter, breadcrumbs, herbs, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Red Herrings Grilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herrings

  1. Split the herrings lengthwise and remove the heads and tails.

  2. Scald the herrings in boiling water, then drain them.

Coat and broil

  1. Moisten the herrings with melted butter and sprinkle bread crumbs over them.

  2. Baste the herrings with more butter and add another layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Sprinkle fine herbs on top, then broil the herrings.

  4. Moisten with oil or melted butter before serving hot, seasoned with pepper and herbs.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Red herrings
Provide the main fish that cooks through and carries the crumb topping.
Melted butter
Adds moisture and richness, helping the crumbs brown under the broiler.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top of the fish when broiled.

The step that matters

Broiling the herrings. Broil until the crumbs are golden and the fish is opaque and flakes easily. Too little heat leaves the crust pale and the fish underdone, while too long dries the flesh and scorches the crumbs.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, bread, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes