The shad are running. American shad (Alosa sapidissima ) aka white shad, common shad, or Atlantic shad is one of Nature’s seasonal gifts. (Actually, virtually every good food is one of Nature’s seasonal gifts if you think about it). Shad spend most of their lives at sea eating plankton, small crustaceans and small fish, and only migrate up fresh water tributaries to spawn in early spring. Often their migration coincides with the blooming of the shadblow (Alemanchier canadensis), hence the common name for a seasonal signal that Native Americans and others who forage, fish and hunt look for every year.
My husband, an Eastern Shore hunter-gatherer from childhood, once caught a shad about the size of a dachshund that we cleaned, stuffed with herbs and orange slices, wrapped in tin foil and baked until just done. Yum. Sweet and flakey. People moan about the bones in shad – indeed it’s a fish with plenty of little stiffeners, a cosmic joke to predators, perhaps. I’ve heard people say you can cook shad for a long time at very high heat in the oven so the bones ‘melt.’ I tried it once years ago but ended up with boney, desiccated fish.
“I think it’s malarkey,” says Kevin McKinney, chef/owner of Brooks Tavern. “I can’t think of any fish where the bones melt!”
Shad and shad roe, available right now, are two of the foods of my childhood; shad roe always hit our plates when the first daffodils began to bloom. Mom invariably gently fried in butter – never margarine — the twin egg sacks, which look fairly revolting, like lungs or something a surgeon usually deals with. It may look less than appetizing, but nutritionally dense shad roe tastes slightly meaty rather than fishy, which is one reason people often pair it with bacon, one of the ways McKinney prepares shad roe.
“We have wrapped it in bacon, floured and sautéed it in clarified butter, that simple,” says McKinney, “or floured it and sautéed it with crisp chopped bacon on the side. This year, we are dipping it in buttermilk, then in flour to give it a little more crust. I start it off at medium heat so it doesn’t explode in my face. If it’s big, I brown them well, then finish them in the oven. If medium or small, I just sauté them until done in the pan.”
He usually adds a drizzle of lemon-garlic vinaigrette at the very end.
“It helps to cut the richness of the roe,” he says. “And sometimes we add candied lemon rind, which is one of our signatures.”
My mother often served creamed cabbage and mash with shad roe. McKinney usually accompanies it with braised, lightly sweet-and-sour cabbage, either red or green, which not only contrasts deliciously with the roe, but also ‘makes sense’ for the season.
“Shad roe’s an early spring dish,” McKinney explains. “There’s not much else around.” Cabbage can be overwintered or stored and therefore be available when few other fresh local greens or vegetables are. Spinach grown in high tunnels was available this winter from local growers. “If you have spinach that winters over, it’s also nice to put underneath [the roe] and then a vinaigrette on top of that.”
For the shad itself, McKinney says he loves it with asparagus, a vegetable that is just coming into season as the fish are going out, an ephemeral ships-that-pass-in-the -night kinda dish, which makes it all the sweeter when it’s here.
Braised Cabbage
1 head of red or green cabbage, thin-sliced
1 medium onion, thin-sliced
1-2 tblsp sugar
¼ cup red wine
¼ cup red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
Sweat the onions in a mix of butter. Add cabbage, red wine vinegar, red wine, sugar, salt and pepper and cook very gently until vegetables are soft and have taken up the liquid.
If you want to cook shad and shad roe once on Sunday and eat twice (or more) during the week, get extra fish, wrap it in tin foil and bake it. Then mix the flaked fish with leftover mashed potatoes (or microwave and mash a potato or two with a little milk or cream, some salt and pepper ). The balance should be should be about 60% fish, 40% potato. Add a dash of hot sauce, some finely chopped onion, a little fresh parsley, form into cakes and fry. Comfort food. Or make soup – chicken or fish stock, chopped onion, chopped celery, a little chopped sweet pepper or chopped roasted pepper, maybe some frozen corn and a diced potato. When the vegetables are tender, add some milk and the fish with plenty of pepper and some paprika. Bring to simmer and thicken with a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch mixed with milk. Have less than 1 cup of leftover fish? Make smoked fish pate. Add a dash of liquid smoke, some chopped scallions, lemon juice, a dash of Worcestershire, mayo and a bit of cream cheese and spread it on toast of crackers.
https://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/fishfacts/americanshad.asp
https://honest-food.net/fish-and-seafood-recipes/shad-other-bony-fish-recipes/
https://fishcooking.about.com/od/bonyfishrecipes/r/virginia_shad.htm
Carol says
Had the shad roe at Brooks Tuesday – wonderful. What an interesting article and great idea for the little leftover I brought home. Thanks!
Robin Wood Kurowski says
Oh yum! One of my favorites and favorite times of year. Surely reminds me that spring is right around the corner. Thanks for this story, recipe and beautiful art. In our community we are lucky to have life long pro shad “boners”, so I have filets a couple of times a season. Last week, we prepared it in the oven and then topped with Tomato Lemon Preserve Bearnaise Sauce. Thought I share with you the right way and a good boat or quick way to make the sauce. So here are both the Julia and the Easy Button Version:
The Julia Child Version (From the Art of French Cooking)
Basic:
Step 1
1/4 wine vinegar
1/4 cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth
1 TB minces shallots or green onions
1 TB minced fresh tarragon or 1/4 TB dried
1/8 tsp pepper
pinch salt
In a small Saucepan boil vinegar wine, shallots or onions, herbs and seasonings over moderate heat until liquid reduces to about 2TBs…let cool.
Step 2
Then the procedure is similar to hollandaise……
3 egg yolks
2TB cold butter
1/2 to 2/3 cup melted butter
2 TB fresh minced tarragon or parsley
Beat egg yolks until thick. Strain in he vinegar mixture and beat. Add 1 TB of cold butter and thicken the egg yolks over low heat. Beat in the other tablespoon of cold butter, then the melted butter by droplets.
Correct the seasoning as you wish and then beat in tarragon or parsley.
MY ADDITION TO JULIA IS
While doing step one or before:
1-Make or obtain a fresh salsa that has cilantro, basil, green pepper and onions that are finely minced.
2-Make or obtain jarred preserved lemons. For light flavor….slice off a thin wedge from a half of one lemon and mince. (My husband is a preserved lemon freak…so we add more)
3-In a small saucepan over very low heat…..stir 1/2 cup of salsa with lemon….stew a little. Add this as you add the tarragon and parsley during step 2.
I prepare the shad in the oven, on grill. I keep the sauce warm and drizzle over each fillet. I make extra to go in a gravy boat for the table. Everyone seems to enjoy this over asparagus or other vegetables and/or potatoes or rice.
_______________________________
The Easy Button
Purchase a ton of pack os McCormick, Knorr or other brand Bearnaise mix.
Prepare according to package
While doing step one or before:
1-Make or obtain a fresh salsa that has cilantro, basil, green pepper and onions that are finely minced.
2-Make or obtain jarred preserved lemons. For light flavor….slice off a thin wedge from a half of one lemon and mince. (My husband is a preserved lemon freak…so we add more)
3-In a small saucepan over very low heat…..stir 1/2 cup of salsa with lemon….stew a little. Add this as you add the tarragon and parsley during step 2.
I prepare the shad in the oven, on grill. I keep the sauce warm and drizzle over each fillet. I make extra to go in a gravy boat for the table. Everyone seems to enjoy this over asparagus or other vegetables and/or potatoes or rice.
Nancy Taylor Robson says
This comment is on Rock Hall Wave. I’ve asked for specifics. If he remembers ’em, I’ll add those and we can all try it.
ntr.
Ask Dot and Bob Ritchie about cooking shad and melting the bones. As long as I can remember my mother cooked shad inside a brown paper bag, in the oven, at a very low temperature for a very long time.. Most of the small bones did actually melt away. Cooked like that it is the best shad with the least bones I have ever eaten!
Capt. Bob
Kate Livie says
Just an FYI for shad-lovers- it is illegal to fish the Bay or the Atlantic for shad. For a variety of reasons (susceptibility to pollution, damming of their spawning habitat), they are one of the most imperiled Bay fish. Think of them as our own bluefin tuna.
The MD DNR states, “Since 1980 there has been a moratorium on harvesting American shad from Maryland waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The Potomac River Fisheries Commission implemented a moratorium in 1982 and Virginia followed in 1994. However, an ocean-intercept fishery was open and Maryland and Virginia harvested American shad from the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic coast fishery (which includes all the coastal states) was closed as of January 1, 2005.”
As far as I know, there is no source of ‘farmed’ shad either.
We are very far from the days of the big shad harvests, when the water inside the seine or gill nets was described as ‘boiling’ with the catch. I don’t know about you, but once I learn that the fish on my plate is endangered, I tend to avoid it from there on out. Food for thought.
Nancy Taylor Robson says
Kate,
Many thanks for the info. Had no idea, obviously. Not many years ago, Gary and I were walking a friend’s farm bordering the Sassafras very late winter/early spring, and looked over the bank to see a huge mess of large shad trapped between the ice layers along the shoreline. Guess he’ll have to hang up the cast net when it comes to shad.
Crop Circles Reconsidered says
Super Fresh had whole shad recently for a low price. One of the fish I bought was full of roe, so I made this recipe last night. It was excellent paired with cold India pale ale — a real spring tonic!
https://www.ediblecommunities.com/jersey/spring-2009/poached-asparagus-with-scrambled-eggs-shad-roe-a-chives.htm
Queen Anne says
Shad roe – stop the insanity. While those little piles of glop are supposed to taste good (we must eat such things and enjoy them ’cause we are from Here) like beaten biscuits and muskrat, they are frauds foisted off by snickering old timers. Alternately smoked shad is delicious. Allow those eggs give an opportunity to give a bigger, and better, return.
You know it’s true.
Larry G. says
Hey, Queen Anne:
You’ve got a choice–do not buy it, do not eat it! Save it for the rest of us! It would be wasted on YOU . . .