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Roe Sauce

A sauce made from mackerel roe, egg yolk, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Roe Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roe

  1. Boil the roes of 3 or 4 mackerel until cooked.

  2. Remove all skin and mash the roes with the back of a spoon.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk with pepper and salt.

  2. Add the chopped fennel and parsley to the egg mixture and mix well.

  3. Combine the mashed roes with the egg mixture and stir in the melted butter.

  4. For variation, add catsup, essence of anchovy, or walnut pickle instead of herbs.

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. Fennel + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Roe + anchovytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together65 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mackerel roes
Provide the main flavour and a soft, creamy body when mashed.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies with the butter and helps bind the sauce into a smooth texture.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it blends into the yolk.

The step that matters

Stirring in the melted butter. Butter added slowly to egg yolk emulsifies into a smooth sauce. If it is added too fast or the butter is too hot, the yolk can scramble or the sauce can separate.

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, egg, pepper, parsley, butter, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, egg, pepper, parsley, butter, anchovy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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