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John Dory

A whole John Dory fish prepared by boiling, baking, or broiling, seasoned with salt, butter, flour, parsley, and served with Dutch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

John Dory

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Scrape off the slime from the John Dory skin.

  2. Boil the fish in cold water for about 20 minutes until done.

Parsley and sauce

  1. For baking, sprinkle chopped parsley over the fish.

  2. Serve with Dutch sauce.

Coat and broil

  1. Dry the fish, then flour, butter and season it.

  2. Wrap the fish in paper.

  3. Screw up the edges tightly.

  4. Broil.

  5. Serve with cold butter or melted butter in a boat.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

John dory
Main protein that cooks through to a flaky texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and moisture to the fish when served.
Flour
Dusting dries the skin's surface and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Boil the fish until done. Boiling the fish in cold water for about 20 minutes needs care, because overcooked fish becomes dry and tough while undercooked flesh stays firm and opaque. Check that it flakes easily at the thickest point before removing it.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sauce. 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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