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 ↓
Fried Fish Roes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the roe
Wash the fish roes.
Cook them in boiling salted water with vinegar for 10 minutes.
Plunge them into cold water.
Drain the roes.
Bread and fry
Roll them in beaten egg, then in seasoned breadcrumbs.
Fry in hot fat until brown.
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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Fish + roetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together118 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,782 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Roe + vinegartop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together136 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,036 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish roes
- Form the main body of the dish, cooked until firm and then coated and fried.
- Beaten egg
- Acts as a binder so the breadcrumbs stick to the roe.
- Seasoned breadcrumbs
- Form a crisp, browned coating when fried.
- Vinegar
- Added to the cooking water, it helps the roe hold its shape during simmering.
The step that matters
Cook the roe in vinegared salted water. Gentle boiling for the full 10 minutes sets the roe so it firms up and holds together. Undercooked roe can stay soft and break apart when breaded and fried.
“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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