Skip to main content
Main

Red Mullets in Papers

Red mullets wrapped in paper with carrot, onion, herbs, baked and served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Red Mullets in Papers

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 mullets

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the carrot, onions, thyme, parsley, marjoram, salt, pepper, and salad oil.

  3. Cover each mullet with the mixture and roll it up in oiled white paper.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the mullets in the oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Carefully open the paper and place the fish on a serving dish, keeping it warm.

  3. In a saucepan, melt a small piece of butter, add flour, and stir in the stock and cooking juices. Let the sauce boil for 5 minutes, adding salt if needed, then strain and pour over the fish before serving.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Red mullets
The fish is the main protein, cooked gently inside the paper until moist and tender.
Onions
Softened by steam in the paper, they add sweetness and moisture around the fish.
Carrot
Sliced thinly, it softens in the parcel and adds mild sweetness and moisture.
Flour
Stirred into melted butter, it thickens the stock and cooking juices into a sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury body once reduced and thickened.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after adding flour. Flour must be cooked in the melted butter and simmered in the liquid so its starch swells and thickens smoothly; adding it to hot liquid unstirred can form lumps.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, thyme, parsley, marjoram, pepper, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes