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Herrings' Roes Devilled

A dish of herring roe seasoned with cayenne, salt, lemon, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Herrings' Roes Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the croutons in hot fat until light brown.

  2. Remove the roes from the herrings and cleanse them.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the roes in a tin with a little butter, season with cayenne and salt, and cook over the fire or in the oven until done.

  2. Squeeze a drop or two of lemon over the cooked roes.

  3. Sprinkle a little cayenne over the croutons and arrange half a roe on each.

  4. Serve hot and quickly.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Roe + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together251 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Soft roes of 2 herrings
Provide the rich, creamy main body of the dish when cooked gently in butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the roes cook gently and brown lightly.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the roe.
Croutons
Provide a crisp base that contrasts with the soft, creamy roe.

The step that matters

Cook the roes until done, without overcooking. Soft roe is delicate and its proteins set quickly with heat. Overcooking makes it grainy and dry, so it should be cooked gently in butter and served promptly.

“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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