Skip to main content
Main

Red Mullet

A baked red mullet served with a sauce of wine, butter, anchovy sauce, Harvey sauce, mushrooms, shallot, parsley, nutmeg, truffle, lemon juice, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Red Mullet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the fish

  1. Place the fish in a sauté pan with the wine, butter, anchovy sauce, and Harvey sauce.

  2. Cook in the oven at 350°F (175°C) or over gentle heat for 25 to 30 minutes.

  3. Transfer the mullet to a serving dish without a napkin.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In the remaining liquid, add chopped mushrooms, shallot, parsley, nutmeg, truffle, lemon juice, and flour.

  2. Stir over heat for 4 to 5 minutes.

  3. Pour the sauce over the mullet.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Red mullet
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently so the flesh stays moist and tender.
White wine
Provides acidity and moisture that steam the fish and build the base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the remaining cooking liquid into a sauce as it stirs over heat.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoury flavour and body to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and wine sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce with flour over heat. Flour must be cooked with the hot liquid for a few minutes to thicken smoothly and lose its raw taste. Stopping early can leave the sauce thin or floury, while cooking too hard can make it stick or scorch.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, butter, anchovy, sauce, mushroom, shallot, parsley):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, butter, anchovy, sauce, mushroom, shallot, parsley. 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.

More red mullet recipes

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

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes