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To Boil a Turbot

A boiled turbot served with fried oysters or oyster patties, lobster or gravy sauce, crispy parsley, and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and lobster work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

To Boil a Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the turbot clean and rub it with alegar to firm it up.

  2. Place the fish on a plate, white side up, and cover it with a cloth, pinning it tight under the plate.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil gently in hard water with plenty of salt and vinegar, skimming well to avoid discoloration.

  2. Once cooked, drain the fish and carefully remove the cloth.

  3. Serve topped with fried oysters or oyster patties, and serve in lobster or gravy sauce in a sauce boat.

  4. Garnish with crispy parsley and pickles.

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. Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Oyster + lobstertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + parsleytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,211 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Is the main fish, whose firm white flesh is the centerpiece of the dish.
Alegar (or vinegar)
Rubbed on the fish and added to the water to firm the flesh and help keep it white.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the poaching water so the fish is flavoured as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiling water. Skimming removes foam and impurities that can settle on the fish and cause discoloration, so the white flesh stays clean-looking. Keeping the water at a gentle boil rather than a hard one also helps the fish cook evenly without breaking apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, vinegar, oyster, lobster):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, vinegar, oyster, lobster. 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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