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Fresh Cob's Roe Sandwiches

A sandwich made with fresh cod roe, liver, and aromatics spread on buttered brown bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fresh Cob's Roe Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roe paste

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped shallots or onion and fry until light brown.

  3. Add the cod's roe and liver slices, chives, parsley, pepper, salt, and chili vinegar. Stir for a few minutes, then pound the mixture in a mortar until fine.

  4. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve and let it cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the paste between thin slices of brown bread and butter. Optionally, add a layer of French anchovy mustard for extra flavor.

  2. Press the sandwiches, trim the edges, and cut into squares or oblongs. Arrange neatly on a plate and garnish.

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. Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod's roe and liver
Provides the main flavor and the soft, spreadable body of the paste.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and carries the flavor of the shallots into the paste.
Shallots or onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth once softened and browned in butter.
Brown bread
Gives a sturdy, slightly nutty base that holds the paste without soaking it.

The step that matters

Passing the paste through a sieve. Pounding and sieving makes the roe mixture smooth and fine, so it spreads evenly and gives the sandwich a uniform texture instead of lumps.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, roe, liver, parsley, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Chivethe original
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, roe, liver, parsley, pepper, vinegar. 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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