Name: Soup of Herrings’ Roes, Named From the Celebrated Writer, Erasmus
Ingredients: 12 soft roes of herrings, disgorged and dried; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Butter, for sautéing; 1 quart young peas, plain boiled; Chervil, blanched; Puree (prepared as above)

Why it works: Pepper and chervil work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 867 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soup of Herrings’ Roes, Named From the Celebrated Writer, Erasmus

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the roe

Sauté the herring roes in butter with a little salt and pepper until cooked.
Drain the roes and place them in a tureen.

Assemble and serve

Add the boiled peas, blanched chervil, and small quenelles of carp.
Pour the boiling puree over the mixture in the tureen.

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.

Pepper + cherviltop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together867 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Peas + cherviltop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together170 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Roe + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together442 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,331 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,887 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Herring roes: Provide the main body and rich, delicate flavour of the soup.
Young peas: Add sweetness and a soft, tender texture to the finished soup.
Butter: Carries the heat for sautéing and adds richness to the roes.
Puree: Forms the liquid base that carries the other ingredients in the tureen.

The step that matters

Sautéing the herring roes. Roe is delicate and cooks quickly over moderate heat; too much heat toughens and dries its soft, creamy texture, so cook only until just set.

Swap the peas

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

Chestnutfits better
Beansfits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, pepper, butter, chervil. 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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Soup of Herrings’ Roes, Named From the Celebrated Writer, Erasmus