Perfect Pairings & Recipes for
Smoked Herring

Discover the best flavour pairings for smoked herring based on data analysis of thousands of recipes. Find perfect ingredient matches & delicious recipes.

Smoky depths and saline notes are at the forefront of smoked herring's flavour profile, but identifying its perfect partner requires exploring its subtle nuances. We need to study the complex interplay of notes that reside within its bouquet, such as iodine, glutamate, and hints of protease, and understand how the notes affect each other and which notes they go well with.

To chart these harmonies, we analysed thousands of ingredients, each deconstructed across 150 distinct flavour dimensions, pinpointing the notes that best complement this ingredient’s profile. Our findings reveal, for instance, how flat-leaf parsley's leafy tones can carry smoked herring, or how parsley's hexenal notes create an unexpectedly harmonious bridge with the salty character.

An ingredient's flavour comes from its core characteristics, like woody, maillard, and carnal, combined with its unique aroma notes (outer bars). When pairing ingredients, aim to include a broad variety of core characteristics for a balanced dish. And choose aroma notes that complement each other for a harmonious combination.

The Flavour Code

To understand how flavour notes harmonise, we analysed more than 50,000 popular ingredient combinations. By exploring these pairings, we identified specific flavour notes that frequently occur together, indicating they share a harmonious relationship.

The Flavours That Harmonise With Saline Notes

Our analysis shows that the flavour of brine is strongly associated with the flavour of grass. This suggests we should look for ingredients with a grassy flavour, such as parsley, when pairing with the briney aroma accents of smoked herring.

The recipe below provides inspiration for pairing smoked herring with parsley.

Harmonious Flavours Of Smoked Herring

Just as our analysis reveals that brine and grassy flavour notes are harmonious, we can identify the full profile of flavours that harmonise with each of the flavour accents present in smoked herring. For instance, the smoky notes of smoked herring are strongly associated with oniony and corn-like notes.

The aroma accents associated with the various aroma notes of smoked herring can be seen highlighted in the pink bars below.

Matching Flavour Profiles

The flavour profile of flat-leaf parsley offers many of the notes complementary to smoked herring, including leafy and grassy aroma accents. Because the flavour profile of flat-leaf parsley has many of the of the features that are complementary to smoked herring, they are likely to pair very well together.

The chart above shows the unique profile of flat-leaf parsley across 150 dimensions of flavour, while the recipes below offer inspiration for bringing these flavours together with smoked herring.

Recipes That Pair Smoked Herring With Flat-leaf Parsley

Linked Flavour Notes

Looking at the accents that are most strongly associated with the various flavours of smoked herring, we can identify other ingredients that are likely to pair well.

The left side of the chart above highlights the aroma notes of smoked herring, along with the complementary aromas associated with each note. While the right side shows some of the ingredients that share many of the aroma notes complementary to smoked herring.

What To Drink With Smoked Herring

The corn notes in mexican lager make it a perfect pairing with smoked herring. Likewise, the leafy flavours in carrot juice create a match made in heaven. Explore a variety of ingredients below that beautifully complement the unique character of smoked herring below.

Which Herbs Go With Smoked Herring?

Choose herbs that cut through its oceaniness or lift its salty character. Flat-leaf parsley and chervil offer vibrant, clean counterpoints, their verdant freshness lifting the palate. Watercress add a gentle, oniony brightness, while oregano introduces a sophisticated, anise-tinged elegance.

Alternatively, embrace herbs that harmonise with smoked herring's salinity. The addition of thai basil, with its subtle hexenal notes, can complement the brine beautifully, while leek lends an aromatic herbalness.

How Flavonomics Works

We've pioneered a unique, data-driven approach to decode the intricate art of flavour pairing. Our goal is to move beyond intuition and uncover the science of why certain ingredients harmonise beautifully. This rigorous methodology allows us to provide you with insightful and reliable pairing recommendations.

Our analysis begins with over 50,000 carefully selected recipes from acclaimed chefs like Galton Blackiston, Marcello Tully, and Pierre Lambinon. This premium dataset ensures our model distils genuine culinary excellence and creativity.

Each ingredient from these recipes is deconstructed across 150 distinct flavour dimensions, creating a unique numerical "flavour fingerprint." This quantification allows us to apply advanced analytical methods to identify complex patterns between flavour notes.

We identify popular ingredient combinations that frequently appear in our recipe database. Regression analysis is then performed on these pairings to statistically validate and pinpoint truly harmonious flavours.

These insights drive our predictive model, which allows us to take any ingredient (e.g., Smoked herring), analyse its detailed flavour profile, and accurately reveal its complementary flavours and perfect ingredient partners.