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Red Mullet, Baked

Baked red mullet wrapped in buttered paper, served with lemon and a butter‑sherry anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Red Mullet, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and dry the red mullet without scaling or opening it.

  2. Cut off the fins and remove the gills and small intestine.

  3. Oil sheets of unglazed paper.

  4. Bake the oiled paper sheets for 2–3 minutes to harden.

Wrap and bake

  1. Place a piece of fresh butter on each paper sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Lay the fish on the butter.

  3. Add a little more butter on top of the fish.

  4. Fold the paper over the fish.

  5. Secure the ends of the paper.

  6. Place the wrapped fish in a baking tin.

  7. Bake in a moderate oven (350 °F / 175 °C) for about 30 minutes.

  8. Serve the fish with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Make the butter sauce

  1. Combine ¼ pint melted butter with the pan gravy.

  2. Add salt to the butter‑gravy mixture.

  3. Add cayenne to the mixture.

  4. Add sherry to the mixture.

  5. Add essence of anchovies to the mixture.

  6. Boil the sauce once before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Red mullet
The fish is the main component, cooked whole and gently steamed in its paper wrap.
Fresh butter
Melts over the fish, adding moisture and richness so it stays tender while baking.
Melted butter
Forms the base of the sauce, giving it richness and a smooth, glossy body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce, rounding its flavour.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Sealing the paper wrap. If the ends are not secured tightly, steam escapes and the fish dries out. A sealed packet traps moisture so the flesh cooks gently in its own juices and butter.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Plumfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sherry. 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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