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John Dory

A boiled John Dory fish seasoned with coarse sea salt and served with lemon, parsley, and optional sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

John Dory

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the John Dory thoroughly and remove the fins.

  2. Place the fish in a fish kettle and cover with cold water.

  3. Add ½ cup of coarse sea salt for each gallon of water.

Poach

  1. Bring the water gradually to a boil.

  2. Simmer gently for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot napkin, garnished with cut lemon and parsley.

  2. Accompany with lobster, anchovy, or shrimp sauce, and plain melted butter.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

John dory fish
The main ingredient, whose delicate flesh turns firm and flaky when gently poached.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the poaching water so the mild fish is lightly flavored as it cooks.
Plain melted butter
Adds richness and fat that complements the lean, mild flesh of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil hard. Vigorous boiling agitates and breaks up delicate fish flesh and toughens its proteins, while gentle simmering cooks it evenly and keeps it moist and intact.

“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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