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Red Mullet

A whole red mullet baked in oil paper with a sauce of fish liquor, butter, flour, anchovy essence, and sherry.

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 ↓

Red Mullet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the Red Mullet without opening or washing the inside.

Bake

  1. Fold the fish in oil paper and gently bake in a small dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Make a sauce with the fish liquor, butter, flour, essence of anchovy, and sherry.

  2. Bring the sauce to a boil and serve it in a boat alongside the fish in its paper case.

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. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + anchovytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,753 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,643 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Red mullet
The main protein, cooked gently in its paper so it stays moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and liquid.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the fish unopened and unwashed before baking. Washing the inside can wash away flavour and moisture, and the fish cooks in its own juices sealed inside the oil paper. Leaving it intact keeps the liquor that later forms the base of the sauce.

“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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