Name: Cod Roes
Ingredients: ½ pint vinegar; ½ pint water; 3 cloves; 6 peppercorns; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Vinegar and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,386 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cod Roes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Lay the roes in a pie dish.
Boil vinegar, water, cloves, peppercorns, and salt for 10 minutes.
Strain the mixture over the roes.

Chill and serve

Set aside until cold.
Serve with cucumber and watercress.

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.

Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod roe (in the method): The main food being pickled, which takes on the flavour of the brine.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavour.
Cloves: Add warm, aromatic spice to the brine.
Peppercorns: Add a sharp, peppery aroma to the brine.

“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.