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Scalloped Shad-Roe
Boil the roe as before. Break apart with a fork. Butter a baking-dish and put a layer of roe in the bottom. Sprinkle with minced parsley, a little lemon juice, and the yolk of a hard-boiled egg mashed fine or rubbed through a strainer. Then add a thin layer of bread crumbs. Moisten with white sauce. Put in another layer of roe, seasoning, and egg, cover with the crumbs well buttered, and bake until nicely browned.
If there is a little cold fish, it may be added to the roe.
A tidy way to stretch one or two shad roes into a supper dish, built in layers like any gratin. The one thing that governs success is how the roe is cooked before it ever reaches the baking dish.
- "Boil the roe as before"This leans on an earlier entry in the fish chapter, which is not reproduced here. Such directions generally amount to lowering the whole roe sac into barely simmering water and holding it below a boil until firm -- ten minutes or so, depending on size. A hard boil bursts the membrane and the eggs scatter and turn grainy.
- Prick the membranePierce the sac in two or three places with a needle or the tip of a knife before poaching. Steam builds inside as it cooks and an unpricked roe will split. Cool it before breaking it apart with the fork.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because none could be. Bake at 375F until the crumbs are browned and the sauce bubbles at the edge, roughly 20-25 minutes. The roe is already cooked, so this is only about heating through and colouring the top.
- White sauceA period white sauce is a thin bechamel: 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon flour cooked together, then a cup of milk whisked in and simmered until it just coats a spoon. Season it with salt, white pepper and a scrape of nutmeg. About a cup is enough for two roes.
- Moisten, do not floodThe instruction is deliberate. Shad roe is dry and dense, and it wants just enough sauce to bind the layers. Too much and the crumb layers dissolve into paste.
- Bread crumbsThe recipe does not say which kind; dry crumbs hold up better here, since fresh soft crumbs absorb the sauce and go sodden. "Well buttered" means tossed with melted butter until they glisten -- roughly 2 tablespoons butter to a cup of crumbs.
- The cold fishThe suggested addition assumes yesterday's poached or baked shad. Any mild flaked white fish works; flake it and fold it through the roe rather than layering it separately.
- YieldNo quantity is given. Reckoning on two shad roe sacs with the sauce and crumbs, the dish would serve three or four as a first course, two as a main with toast.