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Herrings Stuffed with Mustard Butter

A herring stuffed with a mixture of roes, breadcrumbs, and mustard butter, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Herrings Stuffed with Mustard Butter

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mustard butter

  1. Mix 4 tablespoons of butter, 1 teaspoon of dry mustard, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice on a plate.

  2. Form the mixture into a pat and refrigerate until firm.

Prepare the herrings

  1. Wash the herrings and dry them.

  2. Remove the heads of the herrings.

  3. Split the herrings open and take out the backbone.

Make the stuffing

  1. Boil the roes in water for 10 to 15 minutes, then chop them coarsely.

  2. Mix the chopped roes with 1¾ cups of white bread crumbs, 1 tablespoon of oiled butter, anchovy essence or paste, and ¼ teaspoon finely chopped shallot or onion.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper to taste.

Stuff, bake and serve

  1. Stuff the mixture into the herrings and close them.

  2. Brush the herrings with warm butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

  4. Top each herring with a pat of mustard butter 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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through while holding the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind with the roe to give the stuffing a soft, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish brown lightly in the oven.
Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour to the butter topping that cuts the richness of the fish.
Anchovy essence or paste
Adds savoury depth and salty umami to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Close the herrings securely before baking. If the stuffing is packed too loosely or the fish is not closed well, the filling can spill out during baking, leaving the fish dry and uneven.

“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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