Skip to main content
Main

Fresh Herrings

Fresh herrings broiled with butter, herbs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fresh Herrings

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the herrings

  1. Wipe the herrings well.

  2. Empty the herrings.

  3. Scale them carefully.

  4. Cut off a small piece of the tail and head to prevent burning.

  5. Broil the herrings over a brisk fire until well done.

  6. Remove the roes carefully.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread butter over the bottom of a paper case.

  2. Place the roes in the case without breaking.

  3. Sprinkle pepper, salt, rasped bread, and parsley over the roes.

  4. Add small bits of butter on top.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  6. Add maitre d'hotel and lemon juice before serving hot.

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soft-roed herrings
Provide the rich, soft roe that becomes the main body of the dish.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the roes from drying in the oven.
Rasped bread
Forms a light crumb coating that absorbs butter and browns in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich roe and butter flavours.

The step that matters

Broil until well done before removing the roes. Fully cooking the fish sets the flesh and firms the roe so it can be lifted out whole. Cutting off the tail and head beforehand keeps the thin ends from burning under the intense heat.

“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 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes