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To Broil Shad

A whole shad stuffed with forcemeat and roe, wrapped in buttered paper, and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Broil Shad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, and split the shad, then wipe it dry.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with pepper and salt.

  3. Fill the fish with forcemeat and its own roe, then sew it up or secure it with fine skewers.

  4. Wrap the fish in thickly-buttered paper.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the wrapped fish gently over a charcoal fire for about 1 hour, adjusting time based on size.

  2. Serve with caper sauce or cayenne vinegar and melted butter.

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. Roe + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + roetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

Butter
Wrapped around the fish, it keeps the flesh moist during gentle broiling and adds richness.
Roe from the shad
Adds richness and a savory, delicate flavor to the forcemeat stuffing.

The step that matters

Broiling gently over charcoal. Gentle, even heat cooks the thick fish through without drying or scorching the outside. The buttered paper wrapping helps protect the flesh, so the fire should be kept moderate and the time adjusted to the fish's size.

“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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