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Red Mullet a LA Greque

Red Mullet à la Greque is a pan‑cooked fish dish simmered with tomatoes, herbs, saffron, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Red Mullet a LA Greque

Ingredients

Directions

Poach

  1. Preheat a pan with olive oil.

  2. Place the small red mullet in the pan.

  3. Add peeled tomatoes, parsley root, fennel, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns, coriander, and saffron.

  4. Cover with white wine and season with coarse sea salt.

  5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and poach for 12 to 18 minutes.

Cool and serve

  1. Let the fish cool in the cooking liquid.

  2. Serve with some of the cooking liquid and lemon slices.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Fennel + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Fennel + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together337 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Parsley + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Small red mullet
Is the fish cooked gently in the liquid, becoming tender and flaky.
Peeled tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, building the body of the poaching liquid.
Fennel
Adds a light aniseed aroma that flavours the poaching liquid.
Garlic
Adds savory aroma that deepens as it cooks in the liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and moisture, helping extract flavour from the aromatics.
Saffron
Gives the liquid its aroma and golden colour.

The step that matters

Poach gently after the boil. Once the liquid reaches a boil, reducing the heat keeps it at a gentle simmer. Vigorous boiling can break up the delicate fish and make the flesh tough and dry, so timing within the 12 to 18 minute window matters.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, tomato, parsley, fennel, thyme, coriander, saffron):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, tomato, parsley, fennel, thyme, coriander, saffron. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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