Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓
Shad Roe Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the shad roe in boiling salted water with lemon juice for 20 minutes.
Drain and cut the roe into fine pieces.
Mix the roe with the heavy white sauce that has been cooked with one egg for five minutes.
Season the mixture with salt and pepper.
When cold, shape the mixture into croquettes, then coat with egg and breadcrumbs.
Serve with Hollandaise sauce or cucumber sauce.
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Roe + saucetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together142 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Roe + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together243 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Roe + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together251 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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