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Turbot a LA Creme

A baked haddock dish with a creamy sauce, herbs, and a breadcrumb-cheese topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Creme

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. Boil the haddock until the bone can be removed and the skin comes off easily.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pot, boil the milk and whisk in the flour and salt.

  2. Add the egg and butter to the milk mixture.

  3. Place the onion, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and thyme in a bag and boil in the milk to extract the flavor.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a dish.

  2. Layer the fish in the dish.

  3. Add the milk mixture, repeating until the dish is filled.

  4. Top with bread crumbs, grated cheese, and a little butter.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Haddock
Forms the main body of the dish, flaking into tender layers as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the creamy sauce base that moistens the fish during baking.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.
Egg
Adds richness and helps the sauce set and bind when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the top brown.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoriness and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Whisking the flour into the boiling milk. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not whisked in steadily, leaving lumps in the sauce. Whisking while adding it disperses the starch so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, milk, flour, egg, butter, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, milk, flour, egg, butter, pepper, nutmeg. 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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