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Red Mullets Au Gratin

A baked dish of mullets with sherry, Harvey sauce, anchovy sauce, mushrooms, parsley, shallot, lemon, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Red Mullets Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake

  1. Lay the mullets in a buttered gratin dish.

  2. Pour the sherry over the mullets.

  3. Add the Harvey sauce, anchovy sauce, mushroom, parsley, shallot, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cover with buttered paper and cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. Pour the cooking liquid into a saucepan and thicken with a little flour mixed with butter.

  2. Boil well and pour over the mullets.

  3. Cover with breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for a few more minutes.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Mullets
Provide the main flesh that is gently cooked in the oven and bathed in sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and when mixed with flour it helps thicken the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smoother, more cohesive sauce when cooked with butter.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce.
Breadcrumbs (in the method)
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Boil the thickened sauce well before pouring it over the mullets. Flour only thickens properly when the mixture is brought to a boil, because starch granules swell and set in heat. Under-boiled sauce stays thin and tastes of raw flour.

“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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