Name: Broiled Roe
Ingredients: roe; coarse sea salt; black pepper; melted butter; watercress; Maitre d’Hétel Butter

Why it works: Pepper and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiled Roe

Ingredients

Directions

Wipe the roe clean.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Dip the roe in melted butter.
Place on a well-greased broiler.
Broil over a clear fire for five minutes on each side.
Remove to a bed of watercress and spread with Maitre d’Hétel Butter.

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 + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Roe + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together442 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Roe + watercresstop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Butter + watercresstop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together842 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).