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To Dress Fish

A dish of herrings soaked in beer, warmed, buttered, and served with egg sauce or buttered eggs and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

To Dress Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the herrings open and soak them in boiling small beer for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain them completely and heat them just until warm over a fire.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub cold butter over the herrings and serve.

  2. Serve with egg sauce or buttered eggs and mashed potatoes.

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 + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  2. Beer + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beer + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together680 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + potatotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Provide the main fish, which the beer soak seasons and keeps moist while cooking.
Small beer
Soaks into the fish, adding a mild malty flavor.
Cold butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish when rubbed over the warm fish.
Egg sauce or buttered eggs
Adds a creamy, rich accompaniment that complements the fish.
Mashed potatoes
Provides a soft, starchy side that balances the rich fish.

The step that matters

Drain them completely and heat them just until warm over a fire.. Excess surface liquid makes gentle heating uneven and dilutes flavor, while overheating toughens fish protein and dries it out. Heating only until warm keeps the flesh moist and tender.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, butter, egg. 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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