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Red Mullets

A fish stew of red mullets simmered with herbs, onions, anchovies, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Red Mullets

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Scald the mullets in salted water for a few minutes.

  2. In the cooking liquid, boil sweet herbs, onions, peppercorns, and allspice until reduced to less than a pint.

  3. Strain the liquid and add port wine, lemon juice, chopped anchovies, and nutmeg.

  4. When the anchovies dissolve, add the mullets, shrimps or oysters, and a bit of butter and flour for thickening.

  5. Simmer until the fish are cooked through, then serve.

Bake and make sauce

  1. For baking, clean the mullets without removing the entrails, wrap in buttered or oiled paper, and bake gently.

  2. For sauce, use the cooking liquid with chopped anchovy, sherry, and butter rolled in flour, served separately.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 ingredient, cooked gently so the flesh stays moist and tender.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and colour to the liquid that becomes the sauce.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to add savoury depth and a salty, umami flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother, more body-filled sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps bind the flour into the sauce for a silky texture.
Lemon juice
Brings acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness of the port.

The step that matters

Simmer until the fish are cooked through. Fish flesh turns firm and dry when overcooked, so it should be simmered gently and checked until just opaque and flaky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, port wine, lemon, nutmeg, shrimp, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, port wine, lemon, nutmeg, shrimp, 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.

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