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Red Mullet

A fish dish prepared by broiling red mullet and serving it with various sauces such as Italian, Ravigote, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Red Mullet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish en papillote

  1. Broil the red mullet in parchment paper.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with chopped parsley and drizzle with oil.

  3. Bake the fish in parchment for a dish en papillote and serve with Italian sauce.

Serve in the house styles

  1. Serve with white Ravigote sauce for a la Ravigote.

  2. Cook with butter, wine, Harvey sauce, and anchovy for aux fines herbes.

  3. Add chopped mushrooms, parsley, shallot, and lemon juice to the sauce.

  4. For a la Claudine, serve in a brown sauce with anchovies, mushrooms, and capers.

  5. For a la Metropole, stew in white wine with herbs and thicken the sauce with butter and flour.

  6. Serve in Maitre d'hétel sauce for a la maitre d'hétel.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Red mullet
Is the main fish whose delicate flesh is cooked gently in parchment or sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the sauce, and thickens it with flour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the fish.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour as the fish stews, giving the sauce depth.
Anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and stirred well, otherwise the sauce stays lumpy or tastes raw. Cooking the roux gently lets starch swell evenly, giving a smooth, cohesive sauce that coats the fish.

“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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