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Shad Roe Sauce

A sauce made from shad roe, white sauce, sherry, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Roe and sauce work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 142 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Shad Roe Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the roe

  1. Wash the shad roes in cold water.

  2. Place the shad roes in a saucepan and add salt.

  3. Cover the saucepan with boiling water.

  4. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  5. Drain the shad roes.

  6. Remove the outer skin from the roes.

  7. Mash the roe finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a white sauce.

  2. Gradually add the mashed roe to the white sauce.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil once.

  4. Season with Sherry wine and grated nutmeg.

  5. Serve with baked shad.

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.

  1. Roe + saucetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Wine + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sauce + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + nutmegtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,244 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Shad roes
Provide the main body and rich, delicate flavour of the sauce.
White sauce
Forms the creamy base that carries the mashed roe.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the mashed roe to the white sauce. Adding the roe slowly lets it blend evenly into the sauce instead of clumping. Bringing the mixture to a boil only once keeps the egg-rich roe from overheating and turning grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, sauce, sherry, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, sauce, sherry, wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

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