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Fish Turbot

A baked fish dish with a butter‑flour‑milk sauce, parsley, thyme, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish 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. Steam the fish until tender.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from the fish.

  3. Cut the fish into 1‑inch square pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan until it bubbles.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Heat the milk with parsley and thyme until boiling.

  4. Remove the herbs from the milk mixture.

  5. Add the beaten eggs and salt to the milk mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the fish and sauce in a baking dish until all ingredients are used.

  2. Cover the dish with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the main body of the dish, giving it substance and flaky texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and forms the base of the flour roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats and moistens the fish.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the sauce and giving it a firmer, custard-like texture.
Bread crumbs
Form a topping that browns in the oven, adding color and a crisp surface.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to the milk mixture. Eggs set when heated, so if the milk mixture is too hot when they go in, they can scramble into lumps instead of thickening the sauce smoothly. Adding them gently and stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

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