Why it works: Roe and egg work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 243 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Fried Roe
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the roe in cold water for 5 minutes, then drain and wipe dry.
Sprinkle the roe with salt and pepper, and cut into several crosswise slices if large.
Coat the roe with beaten egg and breadcrumbs.
Fry in deep hot fat until golden brown, then drain.
Serve immediately, as they cool quickly.
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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Roe + eggtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together243 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Roe + peppertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together360 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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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