Name: Shad Roe
Ingredients: shad roe; coarse sea salt; black pepper; lemon juice; lettuce leaves; bread or crackers

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Shad Roe

Ingredients

Directions

Season the shad roe with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and lemon juice.
Spread the seasoned roe between lettuce leaves.
Serve with bread or crackers.
You can use any fresh boiled fish in the same way.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).