Skip to main content
Main

Roes, Mackerel, in Cases

A dish of mackerel roe served in small cases with parsley, bread crust, butter, salt, pepper, white sharp sauce, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Roes, Mackerel, in Cases

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roe

  1. Broil the mackerel until well done.

  2. Remove the roe and place them in small cases.

  3. Add chopped parsley, rasped bread, salt, pepper, and butter to the roe.

Bake and serve

  1. Put the cases in the oven until very hot.

  2. Serve with white sharp sauce and lemon juice.

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. Parsley + lemontop 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. Pepper + lemontop 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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel roe
Forms the rich, soft filling that gives the dish its main flavour and body.
Rasped bread crust
Absorbs moisture and gives the filling a light, crumbly texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma that balances the richness of the roe.

The step that matters

Heating the cases until very hot. The roe is already cooked, so the goal is only to heat the filling through and set the crumbs and butter. Overheating can dry the filling and toughen the roe, while underheating leaves the centre cool and greasy.

“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