Name: Shad Roe
Ingredients: shad roe; butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper

Why it works: Roe and butter work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 442 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Shad Roe

Ingredients

shad roe
butter
coarse sea salt
black pepper

Directions

Wash and dry the roe carefully, avoiding breaking the skin.
Place the roe in a steamer and steam for 15 minutes.
Melt a large piece of butter in a skillet.
Season the roe with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Carefully transfer the roe from the steamer to the hot skillet and brown it quickly on both sides.
Serve with maitre d'hotel sauce.

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 + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together442 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Roe + peppertop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together360 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).