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Salad

Shad-roe Salad

A salad of shad roe, lettuce, tomatoes, dressed with oil, lemon juice, tomato pulp, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Shad-roe Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roe

  1. Boil the shad roe until cooked.

  2. Separate the grains by washing them in vinegar.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the grains in a salad bowl with the chopped lettuce and sliced tomatoes.

  2. Dress the salad with oil, lemon juice, strained tomato pulp, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Serve the salad immediately.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Shad roe
Provides the main protein and rich, delicate flavour of the salad.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and bulk to the salad base.
Ripe tomatoes
Contribute juicy moisture and fresh acidity to the salad.
Oil
Carries flavour and adds a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that balances the richness of the roe and oil.

The step that matters

Separate the grains by washing them in vinegar.. Cooked roe must be handled gently so the grains stay intact; vinegar helps firm the proteins and keeps the grains from breaking into a mush.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, lettuce, lemon, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, lettuce, lemon, pepper. 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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