Why it works: Roe and egg work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 243 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Scrambled Eggs with Shad Roes
Ingredients
Directions
Scald the shad roes in boiling salted water for 10 minutes.
Drain and transfer them to cold water for 3 minutes.
Wipe the roes dry and refrigerate until ready to use.
Cut the roes into pieces about 1 inch wide, roll them in flour, and fry until golden brown.
Scramble the eggs and pile the fried roes in the center of a heated platter.
Arrange the scrambled eggs around the roes.
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.
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Roe + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together243 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Roe + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together177 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
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