Skip to main content
Main

Herrings, Roes Of, on Toast

Soft herring roe served on toasted bread with butter, lemon, parsley, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Herrings, Roes Of, on Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the roe

  1. Wash the soft roes of the herrings in cold salt water and place them in a deep fire-proof dish.

  2. In a small saucepan, combine boiling water, French vinegar, salt, peppercorns, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, skim, and strain over the roes.

  3. Cover the dish with buttered paper and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 10 minutes.

Toast and finish

  1. While the roes are baking, toast the bread and butter both sides while hot.

  2. Drain the roes and place one on each piece of toast. Add small pieces of butter on top and return to the oven for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from the oven, squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over each, sprinkle with chopped parsley and cayenne, and serve 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.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soft roes of herrings
Provide the rich, soft, delicate main body of the dish that cooks gently into a custardy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the toast and helps it brown lightly.
Bread
Forms a crisp base that holds the roe and absorbs the buttery juices.
French vinegar
Adds sharp acidity to the poaching liquor, balancing the richness of the roe.

The step that matters

Poaching the roes in the hot vinegar liquor. The roes are delicate and can break up or turn rubbery if the liquor boils too hard. Gentle heat in the covered dish sets them softly while the vinegar flavours them.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes