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Cod's Roe Fried in Batter

Cod roe is boiled, sliced, battered, and fried, then garnished with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cod's Roe Fried in Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roe

  1. Wash the cod's roe well.

  2. Place the roe in a saucepan covered with salted water. Add a little lemon juice or vinegar.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes, then drain and let it cool.

  4. Cut the roe into slices ¼ inch thick.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of 2 eggs with 1 tablespoon olive oil and 4-5 tablespoons cold water to make the batter.

  2. Mix in 3 tablespoons flour and ¼ teaspoon salt, beating for 5-10 minutes.

  3. If the batter is too thick, add a little more water.

  4. Just before using, gently fold in the whisked egg whites.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the slices into batter.

  2. Fry the battered slices in butter until light brown.

  3. Garnish with fried parsley and lemon slices.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whites whisked and folded in add lightness, while yolks enrich the batter and help it coat the roe.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure so the batter clings to the roe slices and sets as it fries.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds browning and a rich flavor to the crust.
Cod's roe
The main ingredient; boiling firms its texture so the slices hold together when battered and fried.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites trap air that gives the batter lightness; folding gently just before use keeps that air from collapsing, so the coating stays airy rather than dense.

“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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