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Pomfret Fillets with Poulette Sauce

Filleted pomfret wrapped in onion, parsley, and mushroom trimmings, served with a sauce of stock, Chablis, vinegar, mushrooms, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Pomfret Fillets with Poulette Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Divide the pomfrets into fillets and season one side with onion, parsley, and mushroom trimmings. Roll up the fillets to enclose the seasoning.

Poach and make the sauce

  1. Simmer the fillets gently in court bouillon or broth made from their bones, stock, Chablis, and vinegar until cooked.

  2. Remove the fillets and strain the broth.

  3. Thicken the broth in a bain‑marie with flour and butter, then add quartered mushrooms, white pepper, and salt.

  4. Off the heat, stir in the strained yolks of the eggs.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the hot fillets.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pomfret
Provides the delicate white fish flesh that is the main component of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, coating sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and smooth texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce when stirred in off the heat, giving it a silky body.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce is too hot when they are stirred in, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy, so the sauce must be removed from the heat first.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, parsley, mushroom, vinegar, flour, butter, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, mushroom, vinegar, flour, butter, egg. 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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