Name: Herring Roe
Ingredients: Herring roe; Cold water; 3% brine

Herring Roe

Ingredients

Herring roe
Cold water
3% brine

Directions

Prepare the roe

Clean off any shreds and strings from the herring roe.
Wash the roe in cold water.
Soak the roe in 3% brine for 2 hours.
Drain the roe and pack it into No. 2 cans.

Seal and process

Exhaust the cans for 10 minutes.
Process the cans for 60 minutes at 240°F (115°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

What each ingredient does

Herring roe: Forms the main body of the canned product and carries its texture and flavor.
3% brine: Salt penetrates the roe, seasoning it and firming its texture before canning.

The step that matters

Process the cans for 60 minutes at 240°F (115°C). Heat must reach the centre of the cans for long enough to make the product safe for shelf storage. Under-processing leaves surviving microorganisms, while the cans must be fully sealed and exhausted first so that heat transfers evenly.

“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.