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Shad Roe, Bearnaise
Mix on a plate a tablespoon oil with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Repeatedly turn two pairs shad roes of one and a quarter pounds each in the seasoning, arrange on a broiler and broil for eight minutes on each side. Pour a Bearnaise sauce on a hot dish, dress the roes over the same and serve.
A four-line recipe that assumes you already know how to handle roe and already have Béarnaise standing by. Two things need attention: the sauce is not given here, and the broiling time will destroy the roe if taken literally.
- The hinge: don't let the sacs burstRoe sets are membrane-wrapped and full of moisture that turns to steam. Prick each lobe in several places with a needle before it goes near heat, and keep the pan a good 5-6 inches from the element so the outside browns while the inside sets gently.
- Eight minutes a side is too longEight minutes a side is likely too long — that timing would suit a slower, more distant fire than a modern broiler. Under a modern gas or electric broiler, a large pair needs roughly 4-5 minutes a side; smaller sets 3. Cooked through means firm and opaque with no red seepage, not grey and grainy.
- Many cooks poach firstPoaching first is a common alternative — slip the roe into barely simmering salted water with a squeeze of lemon for 5-8 minutes, cool it, then broil or saute only to colour. It can give more even results than going raw to the broiler.
- "Two pairs of one and a quarter pounds each"A pair is the two lobes from one fish, still joined. A pair weighing 20 oz is a large one; supermarket and fishmonger sets today more often run 8-12 oz. Buy by weight rather than by count and adjust the timing down for smaller sets.
- Béarnaise, since the recipe assumes itReduce tarragon vinegar and white wine with shallot and cracked pepper, strain, mount with egg yolks and warm clarified butter over gentle heat, finish with chopped tarragon. It breaks above about 160F, so hold it warm, never hot, and never over direct heat.
- Season the plate, not the roe, in advanceThe original turns the roe in oil, salt and pepper immediately before broiling, which is right. Salting roe and letting it stand draws moisture and makes the membrane more likely to split.
- YieldTwo pairs of this size serve four as a main course, six as a first course. Shad roe is rich; lemon and something sharp on the side earn their place next to the butter sauce.
- AvailabilityShad roe is a short spring season, roughly March to May on the American East Coast, and some rivers are closed to shad fishing outright. It is worth calling ahead rather than expecting to find it.
Shad run up the rivers of the Atlantic seaboard each spring to spawn, and the roe taken from the females has been a fixed point in the American culinary calendar since colonial times, celebrated in Philadelphia, along the Hudson and up the Connecticut. It appears in an international cook book under a French sauce because that was the logic of the grand hotel kitchens the book comes out of: a distinctly American seasonal ingredient, dressed in the classic repertoire. Béarnaise itself is generally traced to the Pavillon Henri IV at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the 1830s, the name nodding to Henri IV of Navarre, a native of Béarn, rather than to any dish from that region. The pairing is a sound one, since the tarragon and vinegar cut the heavy, almost liver-like richness of the roe. Shad stocks have declined sharply since this recipe was written, and several historic runs that once supplied the spring markets are now closed or tightly regulated.