Name: Herring Roe
Ingredients: soft roes of herrings; cayenne or white pepper; slices of bacon; bacon fat; small rounds of bread (for croutons)

Why it works: Roe and bread work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 123 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Herring Roe

Ingredients

Directions

Dust the soft roes of herrings with cayenne or white pepper.
Roll each roe in a slice of bacon.
Fry the wrapped roes in bacon fat until cooked.
Fry small rounds of bread in bacon fat until crispy to make croutons.
Serve each herring roe on a crouton while very hot.

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.

Roe + breadtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together123 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
White pepper + breadtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together925 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Roe + white peppertop 37% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16 recipes