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John Dory

A whole John Dory fish cooked in milk and water, topped with a butter, heavy cream, and lemon juice sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

John Dory

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Combine milk and water in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the whole John Dory fish and cook until done.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a separate saucepan.

  2. Stir in heavy cream and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish topped with the cream 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

John dory
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the liquid until it turns opaque and flaky.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded, savoury flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and balances the fish.

The step that matters

Cook the fish until done. Fish proteins tighten quickly with heat, so overcooking makes the flesh dry and firm. Cook gently and check for an opaque, flaky texture before removing it.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, cream, butter):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, cream, butter. 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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