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Red Herrings, a LA Dauphin

A French dish of red herrings coated in butter, egg yolks, herbs, breadcrumbs, and broiled, served on buttered toast with cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Red Herrings, a LA Dauphin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herrings

  1. Remove the heads and backbones from the herrings.

  2. Soak the herrings in warm milk and water for 2-3 hours if very dry, then drain and wipe them.

Coat the fish

  1. Melt the butter and mix it with the beaten egg yolks and minced herbs.

  2. Dip the fish into the mixture and coat them thickly with bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the fish over moderate heat until light brown.

  2. Serve on hot buttered toast, sprinkled with cayenne pepper.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  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
The main fish, cooked whole after the heads and backbones are removed.
Egg yolks
Bind the butter and herbs into a coating that holds the bread crumbs to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a thick crust that browns during broiling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the coating brown.

The step that matters

Soaking the dry herrings. Very dry fish can taste harsh and cook unevenly. Soaking in warm milk and water rehydrates the flesh and mellows its flavour, so it stays moist under the broiler.

“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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