Name: Broiled Shad Roes
Ingredients: shad roes; salt; ice water; oil; lemon juice or vinegar; butter; minced parsley

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 ↓

Broiled Shad Roes

Ingredients

Directions

Drop the shad roes into boiling salted water and cook gently for 10 minutes.
Transfer the roes to ice water for another 10 minutes to blanch and firm them up.
Wipe the roes and set them on ice until cold and stiff.
Rub the roes all over with oil and lemon juice or vinegar.
Broil the roes over clear coals.
Once dished, cover with a sauce made of whipped butter, lemon juice, and minced parsley.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Roe + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together442 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Roe + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together251 recipes

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