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Turbot of White Fish or Halibut

A baked fish casserole made with milk, flour, butter, eggs, onion, parsley, lemon, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 of White Fish or Halibut

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.

Poach the fish

  1. Boil the fish in salted water with vinegar until tender.

  2. Remove from heat, take out the bones, and break the fish into pieces.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with pepper and salt.

Make the dressing

  1. Heat the milk and thicken it with flour blended with butter.

  2. Once cooled, beat in the eggs and season with onion, parsley, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and dressing until full.

  2. Cover the top with bread crumbs and pieces of butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, flaking into tender pieces that hold the dressing.
Milk
Forms the base of the dressing, providing moisture and a creamy texture when thickened.
Flour
Thickens the heated milk so the dressing holds together around the fish.
Eggs
Bind the dressing and set during baking, giving the dish a firm, sliceable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the dressing and browns the bread crumb topping.

The step that matters

Let the dressing cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to very hot milk can scramble or curdle instead of blending smoothly. Cooling the thickened milk first keeps the dressing smooth and lets the eggs set evenly during baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, milk, flour, butter, egg, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, milk, flour, butter, egg, parsley. 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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