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Roe Savoury
Take the soft roes from four bloaters; cook in the oven; then pound them in a mortar with two ounces of butter, a little cayenne, and three peppercorns. Spread the mixture on rounds of hot toast, lay a fried egg on top of each, sprinkle a little minced parsley over, and serve. Probable cost, 7d.
A late-Victorian savoury course dish that comes together in about twenty minutes, provided you can find the fish. Most of the work is in sourcing bloaters and in getting the paste smooth.
- BloatersA bloater is a whole herring, ungutted, lightly brined and cold-smoked, once a staple of Great Yarmouth. Fresh whole herring with the roe intact, or vacuum-packed kippers, are the usual substitutes; kippers are split, gutted and saltier, so taste before adding any further seasoning.
- Soft roe means milt"Soft roe" is the male fish's milt, not eggs. It is sold frozen in some fishmongers as herring milt or laitance; hard roe will give a grainy, drier paste and is not an even swap.
- Oven heatThe original gives none. A moderate oven, 350F, for eight to ten minutes is enough to firm the roes through; they are delicate and turn to mush if overdone.
- The peppercornsThree whole peppercorns pounded into the paste will leave hard fragments unless you work them thoroughly in the mortar first, before adding the roes and butter. Grinding them fresh into the mixture achieves the same thing with less risk of a stray crunch.
- Pass the pasteRoes carry fine membrane. After pounding, push the mixture through a fine sieve with the back of a spoon for the smooth spreadable consistency the dish depends on, then beat the butter back in if it has separated.
- Butter quantityTwo ounces is 4 tablespoons, likely in the same rough range as the weight of four herring roes, though roe size varies. Soften it rather than melting it, or the paste will be oily instead of creamy.
- Assembly and timingEverything should be hot at once. Have the toast cut into rounds and the eggs frying while the paste is still warm from the mortar; the dish goes cold and greasy within a minute or two of sitting.
- YieldThe recipe does not say how many rounds; the quantities suggest about four, one fried egg each. The 7d 'probable cost' is a period retail estimate and tells you this was cheap food dressed up.
Savouries were the small, salty, usually anchovy- or roe-based course served at the end of a formal British dinner, after the sweet and before the dessert fruit, and they were widely remarked on as a British peculiarity. Cassell's, a household dictionary rather than a chef's manual, is full of them because they let a modest kitchen finish a meal with something that tasted expensive: smoked herring, toast and an egg. The bloater is associated above all with the Yarmouth curing houses, and the name is traditionally explained by the fish's plump, "bloated" look after a short brine and a light smoke that leaves it still perishable and only partly preserved, though 'bloat herring' is recorded well before the nineteenth century and the derivation is not settled. Soft roes were a byproduct of that trade and cheap, which is why they turn up on toast in a book aimed at cooks watching the pennies.