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Mackerel Roe Sauce

A sauce made from boiled mackerel roe, egg yolk, pepper, salt, fennel, parsley, and melted 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 ↓

Mackerel Roe Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roe

  1. Boil the roes of mackerel until cooked.

  2. Remove from heat and mash with a spoon.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed roes with the egg yolk, pepper, salt, fennel, and parsley.

  2. Mix in the melted butter until well combined.

  3. 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

Roes of mackerel
Provide the main body and rich, savoury flavour of the sauce.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the melted butter and helps bind the sauce into a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky, rich mouthfeel and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Mixing in the melted butter. Butter must be thin and added gradually while mixing so the egg yolk can emulsify it. Adding it too fast or too thick can split the sauce into greasy pools instead of a smooth, cohesive texture.

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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