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John Dory, Baked

A baked John Dory fillet topped with a lemon‑egg sauce and garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

John Dory, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean, dry, and flour the fish.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then sprinkle with parsley.

  3. Brush the fish with clarified butter and place in a well-buttered baking dish.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Pour the light wine over the fish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. For the sauce, beat the egg yolks in a saucepan with butter, lemon juice, cold water, salt, cayenne, and mace.

  3. Stir the sauce over low heat until nearly boiling, being careful not to curdle it.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce over the fish, garnished with lemon slices and parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with butter and lemon to thicken the sauce as it gently heats.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps it stay smooth when warmed.
Light wine
Adds moisture and gentle acidity that keeps the fish from drying in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and helps balance the egg yolks.
Clarified butter
Coats the fish to add fat, promote gentle browning, and prevent sticking.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce over low heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and curdle. Keeping the heat low and stirring constantly keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, parsley, butter, wine, egg, lemon):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, parsley, butter, wine, egg, lemon. 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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