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Herrings, Roes of, on Toast
Take the soft roes of six herrings, wash them well in cold salt water, and put them in a deep fire-proof dish. Put half a pint of boiling water and a wine-glassful of French vinegar into a small saucepan; add a pinch of salt, six peppercorns, and three bay-leaves. Set this on the fire, and, as soon as it boils, skim it, and strain it over the roes. Cover the dish with a buttered paper, and put it in a moderately hot oven for ten minutes. Make six pieces of toast, and while hot butter them on both sides. Drain the roes, lay one on each piece of toast, put little pieces of butter over them, and return to the oven for five minutes. Take them out, squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice over each, sprinkle them with a little chopped parsley and cayenne, and serve hot.
A Victorian savoury course, still worth making if your fishmonger will sell you soft herring roes. The whole dish takes about twenty minutes once the roes are in hand.
- Soft roes are milt"Soft roe" is the male herring's milt, not eggs; it is creamy and pale, where hard roe is granular. Soft roes are often sold frozen — thaw them fully in the refrigerator and pat dry before the salt-water rinse, or they will shed water into the poaching liquor.
- Poach gently, do not boilThe hinge of the dish: the strained hot liquor is poured over the roes and they cook through in the oven's steam, never in a rolling boil. Boiled milt splits and turns grainy; ten minutes of gentle heat leaves it set but soft.
- Half a pint and a wine-glassfulAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. A wine-glassful in Victorian cookery books is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so a scant quarter-cup of vinegar. "French vinegar" most likely means wine vinegar.
- Moderately hot ovenTake that as roughly 375–400F: hotter than a plain "moderate" oven, short of a "quick" one.
- Buttered paperButtered parchment, laid directly on the surface, is the modern equivalent. Foil works but sits less well against the liquid; the point is to trap steam without sealing the dish airtight.
- Fire-proof dishThe recipe calls for a deep dish; any baking dish that takes direct oven heat will serve — earthenware or enamelled iron rather than ordinary china.
- Toast timingButter the toast hot on both sides, as written, but make it while the roes are in the oven. Toast buttered and then held goes limp under the second five-minute bake.
- Yield and courseSix small toasts — one savoury course for six at the end of a formal dinner, or a light supper or breakfast for two to three. Cayenne here is a seasoning, not a garnish: a light dusting, no more.
Roes on toast belongs to the British savoury, the small hot salty course served after the sweet and before dessert at Victorian and Edwardian dinners, when anchovies, kidneys, mushrooms and soft roes all did duty in the same slot. Herring were among the cheapest fish landed in Britain, and the soft roes — a by-product of the vast curing trade that turned the catch into bloaters and kippers — cost next to nothing, which is why a dish this delicate could sit comfortably in a household dictionary aimed at middle-class kitchens. The method is the lesson: a short court-bouillon of water, vinegar, peppercorns and bay, strained over the food and steamed under buttered paper. The savoury course is generally said to have faded in Britain after the First World War, and soft roes seem to have gone with it, though they are often described as a familiar breakfast item in parts of northern England and Scotland.