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Broiled Roe

Broiled roe seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, served on watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and watercress work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiled Roe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roe

  1. Wipe the roe clean.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Dip the roe in melted butter.

Broil and serve

  1. Place on a well-greased broiler.

  2. Broil over a clear fire for five minutes on each side.

  3. Remove to a bed of watercress.

  4. Spread with Maitre d'Hotel 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. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  4. Roe + watercresstop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Butter + watercresstop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Roe
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a firm, tender texture under direct heat.
Melted butter
Coats the roe to add moisture and richness, helping it brown evenly under the broiler.
Maitre d'hotel butter
Adds herby, savoury richness and moisture when spread over the hot roe.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire for five minutes on each side. Broiling needs steady, intense heat so the roe sets and browns on the outside while staying moist inside. Too little heat or too long cooking dries and toughens the delicate roe.

“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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