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The Plain Red Herring

A grilled red herring dusted with flour and served with butter and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

The Plain Red Herring

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose a firm, fresh red herring and wipe it clean.

  2. Soak the herring in lukewarm water for a few hours if it is too salty, then dry it with a cloth.

  3. Make a few incisions in the back of the herring or slightly split it.

  4. Dust the herring with flour.

Grill and serve

  1. Place the herring on a gridiron about 6 inches over a clear fire.

  2. Turn the herring often and cook for about 5 minutes, depending on its size.

  3. Mix butter with a little mustard and either place it inside the herring or rub it over the top before serving.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Red herring
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the smoky, grilled flavour.
Flour
Dusting helps the surface dry and brown lightly over the fire.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts over the hot fish.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the butter and fish.

The step that matters

Turning the herring over the fire. Turning often keeps the fish from scorching on the hot side while the thick parts cook through. Watching the heat matters because the fish is cooked quickly over a clear fire.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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