Four whole grilled herring with blistered, browned silver skin on a white earthenware platter, with nut-brown butter, chopped green parsley, sliced green onion and capers spooned over them. — Whole grilled herring under brown butter with parsley, green onion and capers.

Grilled Herring with Brown Butter and Capers (1653)

Name: Grilled Herring with Brown Butter and Capers
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 800 g whole fresh herring, gutted (about 4 fish); 15 g butter for the grill; ¼ tsp fine salt; 15 g flat-leaf parsley leaves; 30 g scallions (about 2); 60 g unsalted butter for the sauce; 1 tsp white wine vinegar; 1 tbsp capers, drained

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Grilled fresh herring under butter browned with parsley and young onions, a drop of vinegar and capers, from La Varenne’s The French Cook of 1653.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 31, 2026

Recipe makes: 4 herring, 2 servings
Prep: 10 min
Cook: 10 min
Total: 20 min

Whole herring of about 200 g take 3 to 4 minutes a side under a hot broiler. Brown the butter while the second side cooks.

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Whole grilled herring under brown butter with parsley, green onion and capers.

The story behind the recipe

Butter browned in the pan with parsley and young onions, a drop of vinegar and, if you like, a few capers: that is La Varenne’s sauce for grilled fresh herring, and the whole dish takes about twenty minutes. It comes from The French Cook, the English translation of 1653 of his Cuisinier françois, among the first courses for the lean days when meat was forbidden and fish came to the table instead. Nothing ties it to the Dutch fishery or to the war that began twelve years after the book appeared. It shows the herring at its simplest, before salt or smoke has touched it.

Why gut a herring through the gills?

The grilling comes from the recipe just above, “Fresh herring rosted,” which opens “Emptie them at the gills.” The cook draws out the insides through the gill opening and leaves the belly uncut, so the fish goes onto the iron whole and keeps its shape as it cooks. That recipe grills the herring with butter on the bars and serves them with a butter sauce of vinegar, salt, pepper, nutmeg and mustard. “Herrings with brown sauce” begins “After your herrings are rosted” and gives the other sauce, the one here.

Its “chibols” are young green onions, the kind sold today as scallions. Mustard comes back a few pages later, with salted herring and with smoked red herring: of the four herring recipes among these first courses, three offer it, and this is the one that doesn’t.

Making it today

A broiler or a ridged grill pan stands in for the gridiron over embers, and the amounts are ours, since the book gives none beyond “a drop.” Fresh herring can be hard to find; a fishmonger who sells whole fresh sardines or small mackerel is the next best place to look, and the brown butter suits both. The barrel herring of the Dutch trade gets its own page in Stewed Salt Herring with Onion (1653), and What Happened to the Dutch Herring Fishery in the War of 1665? follows the fleet, the painting and the catch records through that war.

63. Fresh herring rosted. Emptie them at the gills, and rost them on [th]e gridiron, moistned with butter; after [th]ey are rosted, make a sauce with fresh but[te]r, a drop of vinegar, salt, peper and nut[m]eg, mixe some mustard with it, and [se]rve.
64. Herrings with brown sauce. After your herrings are rosted, make a [b]rown sauce, making your butter brown in [th]e panne with parsley, and chibols minced, [w]hich you shall put into your brown butter [w]ith a drop of vinegar; if you will, put to it [c]apers, and serve.

François Pierre de La VarenneThe French Cook, translated by I. D. G. (London: Charls Adams, 1653), p. 167, nos. 63 and 64

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Ingredients

For 4 herring, 2 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 4 herring, 2 servings.

Whole fresh herring, gutted (about 4 fish)800 g
Butter for the grill15 g
Fine salt1/4 tsp
Flat-leaf parsley leaves15 g
Scallions (about 2)30 g
Unsalted butter for the sauce60 g
White wine vinegar1 tsp
Capers, drained1 tbsp

Ingredients as written here

800 g whole fresh herring, gutted (about 4 fish)
15 g butter for the grill
¼ tsp fine salt
15 g flat-leaf parsley leaves
30 g scallions (about 2)
60 g unsalted butter for the sauce
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp capers, drained

Equipment

Broiler pan with rack, or a ridged cast-iron grill pan
Pastry brush
Small light-colored frying pan
Fish spatula
Instant-read thermometer

Instructions

Heat the broiler to high with the rack about 10 cm (4 inches) below the heat, or heat the grill pan over medium-high heat for 5 minutes.
Rinse the gutted whole fresh herring inside and out, pat them dry with paper towels, and cut two shallow slashes across each side.
Melt the butter for the grill. Brush the broiler rack or grill pan with some of it, brush the rest over both sides of the fish, and season them with the salt.
Chop the flat-leaf parsley leaves finely. Trim the scallions and slice them thinly, green parts too.
Lay the herring on the rack or in the pan and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until the skin is blistered and browned. Turn them carefully with the fish spatula and cook 3 to 4 minutes more, until the flesh is opaque and lifts away from the backbone and the thickest part reads 63°C (145°F). Lift them onto warm plates.
While the second side cooks, melt the unsalted butter for the sauce in the small frying pan over medium heat and let it foam, swirling the pan, for 2 to 3 minutes, until it smells nutty and the specks on the bottom turn golden brown.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the parsley and scallions; they will sizzle. Add the white wine vinegar and the capers, swirl once, and spoon the brown butter over the herring at once.

Nutrition

600calories per serving

Recipe makes: 4 herring, 2 servings
Servings: 2

Estimated per serving (2) from USDA FoodData Central values for raw Atlantic herring (about 440 g edible flesh from 800 g whole fish), butter, parsley, scallions and capers.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Grill no more herring at a time than fit in one layer with space between them, and cook the rest in a second batch.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

This page joins two neighboring recipes from the same page of the book: the grilling is no. 63’s, and the brown sauce is no. 64’s, which picks up where no. 63 leaves the fish (“After your herrings are rosted”); both are printed in full under Original. La Varenne gives no amounts, heat or time: the quantities, the broiler, the slashes and the salt on the fish are our choices. The capers are optional in the book (“if you will”). The book cleans the fish through the gills; a herring gutted through the belly in the usual modern way cooks the same. For his first sauce, from “Fresh herring rosted,” melt the butter gently and whisk in the vinegar with a pinch each of salt, pepper and nutmeg and about 2 tsp prepared mustard. For herring fillets, brush them with the butter and broil them skin side up for 3 to 4 minutes without turning, until the thickest part reads 63°C (145°F). Whole sardines need about 2 minutes a side, small mackerel 4 to 5. Thaw frozen whole herring overnight in the refrigerator. Fish should reach 63°C (145°F), as the US government’s safe minimum temperature chart advises. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours and eat them within a day. Contains fish and milk (butter).

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.