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Mullet, Stewed

A stew of mullet fish cooked in hock and sherry wine with vegetables and herbs, finished with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mullet, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine hock wine and sherry wine.

  2. Add sliced carrot, turnip, lemon, bay leaf, mace, thyme, and parsley.

  3. Gently lay in the fish and stew over low heat for 20 to 30 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Strain the gravy and thicken it with butter rolled in flour.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then serve the fish on a hot dish with sauce poured over.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mullet fish
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender as it stews gently in the liquid.
Butter and flour
Rolled together and stirred in, they thicken the strained gravy into a smooth sauce.
Hock wine and sherry wine
Form the stewing liquid, adding acidity and aroma that flavour the fish and gravy.

The step that matters

Stewing over low heat. Gentle, low heat keeps the fish moist and intact, while a rapid boil can break up the flesh and make the gravy cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, sherry, carrot, turnip, lemon, thyme, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sherry, carrot, turnip, lemon, thyme, parsley. 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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