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On Some Ancient Pood

Red mullet baked in oiled paper with sliced carrot, onion and herbs, then served with a sauce made from the cooking vegetables and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,057 recipes mention both. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

On Some Ancient Pood

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut one carrot and two onions into thin slices.

  2. Add thyme, parsley, and marjoram, with pepper and salt to taste, and three tablespoonfuls of salad oil. Mix these well together.

  3. Cover each mullet with the mixture.

  4. Roll each mullet up in a piece of white paper that has been previously oiled.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake them in a moderate oven for half an hour.

  2. Carefully open the paper and place the fish neatly on a dish, ready to be served, and keep it warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt a small piece of butter. Add a large pinch of flour and half a tumblerful of good stock, and the vegetables, etc., the fish were cooked in.

  2. Let the sauce boil five minutes. Add salt if wanted.

  3. Strain and skim the sauce, pour it over the fish, and serve.

By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Red mullet (in the method)
The main fish, which cooks gently inside the paper and stays moist.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and rich flavour as it melts.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aroma to the steam and the sauce.

The step that matters

Rolling the fish tightly in oiled paper. The sealed paper traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its own moisture. If the parcel is loose or torn, steam escapes and the fish can dry out.

Flavor stand-ins for the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, thyme, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsnipabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Leekabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, thyme, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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