Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
How to Boil Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Fill a pot with water and add the wineglass of vinegar and coarse sea salt.
Bring the water to a boil.
Carefully add the whole turbot or portions of holibut to the boiling water. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface.
Boil until the fish is cooked through, then remove from the pot.
Serve the fish with shrimp sauce.
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.
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Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together248 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Fish + shrimptop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together252 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Turbot + fishtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together153 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Turbot + shrimptop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together90 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Shrimp + saucetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,423 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Turbot or halibut
- Forms the main body of the dish, providing the flesh that cooks through in the simmering liquid.
- Vinegar
- Adds a light acidity to the poaching water that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.
The step that matters
Skimming the scum. Proteins and impurities rise to the surface as the water heats. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and the fish's flavour clean rather than muddied.
“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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