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Shad Roe Salad
One set of shad roes, one-half pint mayonnaise, one or two heads of lettuce, one slice of onion.
Wash the roes, cover with boiling salted water and simmer for twenty minutes. Drain and put away in a cold place. Just before dinner remove the skin from the roes, cut in thin slices or in dice. Put one slice of onion in the center of the salad dish, arrange around it cups or nests of crisp lettuce leaves. Put a large tablespoonful of the shad roe in each lettuce cup, with some of the mayonnaise on the top. The cut up roe may be served with a French dressing if liked.
A cold composed salad built on poached shad roe, a spring delicacy of the American Atlantic coast. Most of the work is in handling the roe gently enough that it stays intact.
- The hinge: never let it boilShad roe lobes are held together by a thin membrane that bursts and sprays the pan if the water moves hard. Bring the salted water to a boil, add the roe, then drop the heat so the surface barely shivers.
- "One set of shad roes"A set is the pair of lobes taken from one fish, joined at one end. Sets vary a good deal in weight, from a few ounces to a pound or more, so the number of lettuce cups you can fill will vary with the fish.
- Twenty minutes is longThat timing suits a large set, and the roe is then chilled firm for slicing, which is what this recipe wants. If your set is small, 10-12 minutes at a bare simmer is enough; overcooked roe turns dry and chalky.
- Half a pint of mayonnaiseOne cup. That is generous for one set of roe. If your mayonnaise is very stiff, thin it with a little lemon juice before spooning it over.
- SkinningThe membrane peels away easily once the roe is thoroughly cold, and very poorly while it is warm. Chill at least two hours, then strip the skin and any heavy veins before dicing.
- The onion sliceIt functions as a garnish for the centre of the dish rather than as something to be eaten; the recipe does not say what kind of onion, so a thin slice of a mild one is the safe choice.
- SourcingAmerican shad stocks are much reduced from their 1900 level and several rivers are closed to harvest, so roe is a short, regional, and expensive season, running from late winter into spring depending on the river. Frozen sets are sold; if you cannot find shad, other poached or cured fish roe can stand in, though the texture is different.
- ServesThe recipe gives no yield; figure roughly four to six lettuce cups from an average set, one per person as a first course. The French dressing is offered simply as an alternative to the mayonnaise.
Shad ran up the Atlantic rivers in enormous spring numbers well into the nineteenth century, and the fish was cheap enough to be considered common food while its roe was treated as the luxury. Cookbooks of the period seem largely to assume a reader who knows the season and can buy a set from the fishmonger without further explanation. A recipe like this one appears to belong to a moment when American hostesses were expanding the salad course far beyond greens, pressing cooked fish, shellfish, poultry and vegetables into mayonnaise-dressed lettuce cups for luncheons and light suppers. The lettuce nest with a spoonful of something rich and a cap of mayonnaise is often said to be the signature form of the era, applied here to an ingredient that has since become scarce and seasonal rather than ordinary.