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Sauce

Mackerel Roe Sauce

A sauce made from boiled mackerel roe, egg yolk, pepper, salt, fennel, parsley, and melted butter, optionally flavored with mushroom ketchup, walnut pickle, or soy.

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 ↓

Mackerel Roe Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roe

  1. Boil the mackerel roe until cooked.

  2. In a bowl, mash the roe with a spoon.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the egg yolk, pepper, and salt, and mix well.

  2. Stir in the chopped fennel and parsley.

  3. Gradually mix in the melted butter until combined.

  4. Add mushroom ketchup, walnut pickle, or soy if desired.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mackerel roe
Provides the main body and rich, savoury flavour of the sauce.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies with the butter, helping the sauce become smooth and thick.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel as it is mixed in.
Fennel
Adds a mild aniseed aroma and a fresh, slightly sweet note.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green herbal aroma that lightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the melted butter. Adding the warm melted butter slowly lets the egg yolk emulsify it into the mixture. Adding it all at once can cause the sauce to separate and turn greasy.

Swap the fennel

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, egg, pepper, parsley, butter, mushroom. 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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