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Shad and Rock Roe

Small cakes made from shad and rock roe, fried or boiled, served with butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Shad and Rock Roe

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cakes

  1. Heat lard in a pan for frying.

  2. Beat eggs in a bowl and mix with the roe.

  3. Form the mixture into small cakes and fry until golden.

Boil the roe and serve

  1. Wrap the roe in a cloth for boiling.

  2. Place the wrapped roe in boiling water and cook until done.

  3. Serve with melted butter sauce.

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 + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Shad and rock roe
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their rich flavour.
Eggs
Bind the roe together and set with heat to hold the cakes in shape.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and helps the cakes brown to golden.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce served with the roe.

The step that matters

Boiling the wrapped roe. Egg proteins and roe set firm when heated, so boiling too hard or for too long makes the roe tough and rubbery.

“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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