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Grilled Herrings

Grilled herrings served with a butter, parsley, lemon, and pepper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Grilled Herrings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wipe the herrings dry with a cloth and sprinkle salt inside each one.

  2. Make a few cuts across each side of the fish to prevent curling while grilling.

Grill and serve

  1. Grill the herrings under the gas for 4 to 5 minutes, turning them halfway through.

  2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then add chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Place the grilled herrings on a dish and pour the sauce over them.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
The main protein; cuts across the skin let heat penetrate and stop the fish curling.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and fish.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Grilling the herrings. Oily fish can dry out or burn quickly under direct heat. Turning them once halfway through helps the flesh cook evenly, and the scored cuts keep the skin from tightening and curling.

“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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