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To Boil the John Dory

A boiled John Dory served with parsley, lemon slices, and optional lobster, shrimp sauce or melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Boil the John Dory

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Prepare the fish as you would a turbot.

  2. Place the fish in a large pot and cover it with water.

  3. Add the coarse sea salt to the water.

  4. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

  5. Cook for about 45 minutes, adjusting time based on the size of the fish.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish in a folded napkin, garnished with curled parsley and lemon slices.

  2. Serve with lobster sauce, shrimp sauce, or melted butter 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + lobstertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Lemon + lobstertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

John dory (in the method)
The main protein; gentle simmering keeps its flesh moist and flaky.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the poaching water so the fish is flavoured from the outside in.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a gentle simmer. A hard rolling boil toughens and breaks up delicate fish flesh, while a gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps it moist and tender.

“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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