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Shad Roe in Ramekins

A baked dish of shad roe mixed with cream, egg yolks, butter, flour, and seasonings, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Shad Roe in Ramekins

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 375°F (190°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the roe

  1. Wash the shad roes and place them in boiling salted water.

  2. Cover the roes and simmer slowly for 15 minutes.

  3. Skin and mash the roes.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the cream in a separate pot.

  2. Rub the butter and flour together.

  3. Add the butter and flour mixture to the boiling cream and stir until very thick.

  4. Remove the cream from heat and mix in the egg yolks, mashed shad roes, lemon juice, nutmeg, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  5. Pour the mixture into ramekins.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover each ramekin with breadcrumbs and small pieces of butter.

  2. Brown the ramekins in the oven at 375°F (190°C).

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad roes
Provide the main flavour and a soft, custardy body once mashed into the mixture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, forming the base of the custard.
Egg yolks
Set during baking and bind the mixture into a smooth, tender custard.
Butter and flour
Cooked together into a roux that thickens the boiling cream.
Breadcrumbs (in the method)
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the roux into the cream. The cream must be stirred constantly while the flour-butter mixture thickens, otherwise lumps form. Thickened cream is then cooled before the egg yolks are added, because very hot liquid can scramble the yolks instead of setting them smoothly.

“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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