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Gurnets, a LA Dauphine

Gurnets à la Dauphine is a baked fish dish coated in Allemande sauce, egg, and breadcrumbs, served with crayfish sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Gurnets, a LA Dauphine

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.

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut off the heads and fins from the gurnets.

  2. Boil the gurnets in water with salt and vinegar until cooked.

  3. Drain and skin the gurnets.

Coat and bake

  1. Cover the gurnets with the Allemande sauce and let them cool.

  2. Beat the egg and coat the gurnets, then cover them with bread crumbs.

  3. Place the gurnets on a greased baking sheet.

  4. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  5. Serve garnished with Kaxngotte sauce containing crayfish tails.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sauce + crayfishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together195 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + crayfishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Gurnets
The main fish, which is cooked through and then becomes the body of the dish.
Stiffly-reduced allemande sauce
Thick sauce that coats the fish and holds the crumb coating in place.
Egg
Beaten egg acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Coating that browns in the oven, adding a golden crust and texture.

The step that matters

Let the gurnets cool under the Allemande sauce before coating. The sauce needs to set and chill on the fish so it stays in place; if the fish is still warm or the sauce is thin, it slides off and the egg and crumbs fail to adhere evenly.

“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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