Skip to main content
Main

Red Mullets

Red mullets baked with sherry wine, butter sauce, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,697 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Red Mullets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Bake the mullets

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Fold the red mullets in oiled paper and place them in a baking dish with the sherry wine.

  3. Bake in the oven until done, then remove and pour the cooking liquid into a bowl.

  4. Keep the mullets warm until ready to serve.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add enough flour to absorb the butter, then stir in the reserved cooking liquid.

  3. Add stock as needed to achieve the desired quantity.

  4. Stir in the anchovy essence and serve the mullets in the paper with the sauce on the side.

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. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sherry + anchovytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Wine + anchovytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together354 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Red mullets
Form the main protein that is gently cooked in oiled paper to stay moist.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid that later flavours the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and rich flavour once melted.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the butter and cooking liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Anchovy essence
Adds a concentrated savoury, salty depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the melted butter. Flour must be cooked into the melted butter before liquid is added; this forms a roux that thickens the sauce smoothly. Adding liquid too early can leave lumps.

“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.

More red mullet recipes

Baked 18Roasted 16Grilled 7Broiled 4 See all 27 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes