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Baked Fillet of Turbot

A baked fillet of turbot seasoned with egg, breadcrumbs, parsley, cayenne, salt, nutmeg, lemon juice, and served with lobster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked Fillet of Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove skin and bones from the turbot and cut it into square pieces.

  2. Brush the pieces with egg.

  3. Sprinkle the pieces with bread crumbs mixed with parsley, cayenne, and salt.

  4. Place the fillets in a baking dish.

  5. Add enough butter to baste the fillets.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour, basting frequently with butter.

  2. Heat the lobster sauce with lemon juice and nutmeg.

  3. Pour the heated sauce over the fish after draining excess butter.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flakes as it bakes.
Egg
Acts as a binding wash that helps the bread crumbs adhere to the fish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns during baking.
Butter
Adds moisture and fat, helping the surface brown while keeping the fish from drying out.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Basting the fish during baking. Frequent basting with butter keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning, so the fish does not dry out over the hour-long bake.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, egg, bread, pepper, parsley, lemon, butter):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, egg, bread, pepper, parsley, lemon, butter. 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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