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Broiled Blue Fish, Maitre De Hotel Sauce

A broiled blue fish served with a butter, lemon, and parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Broiled Blue Fish, Maitre De Hotel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Clean and prepare the blue fish.

  3. Season the fish with salt and pepper.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the fish for about 5-7 minutes on each side until cooked through.

  2. In a small bowl, mix butter, lemon juice, and parsley.

  3. Serve the fish topped with the Maitre de Hotel sauce.

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

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Blue fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to flaky, tender flesh under heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries flavour over the fish surface.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the fish flavour.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green aroma to the butter sauce.

The step that matters

Broiling the fish. Fish cooks quickly under intense direct heat, so it can dry out or overcook within minutes. Checking for opaque, flaky flesh at the lower end of the time helps keep it moist.

“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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