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John Dory

A boiled John Dory fish served with parsley, lemon slices, and optional lobster 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 ↓

John Dory

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Empty and thoroughly cleanse the fish.

  2. Cut off the fins and rub salt all over it.

Boil

  1. Place the fish in a kettle and cover with water, adding salt to the water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 20 minutes or less, depending on the size.

  3. Lift the fish out and let it drain over the saucepan.

Serve

  1. Serve on a neatly-folded napkin, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

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

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

  2. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

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 protein, cooked gently in simmering water until flaky and moist.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the flesh directly and the cooking water, flavouring the fish from within.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil hard. A hard boil toughens the proteins and can break the delicate flesh apart. Gentle simmering cooks the fish evenly, so it stays moist and holds together. Time depends on size, so check for doneness early.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lemon):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon. 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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