Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Turbot

Broiled Turbot is a fish dish marinated in sweet oil, salt, pepper, then broiled and served with capers and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and capers are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,088 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiled Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Marinate the turbot in sweet oil, salt, and pepper.

  2. Broil the fish slowly over a clear fire.

  3. Serve with chopped capers and melted butter or Dutch sauce.

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. Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turbot + caperstop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Capers + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,637 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Is the main protein, cooked by broiling until it is flaky and done.
Sweet oil
Coats the fish, adding moisture and helping it brown evenly under the broiler.

The step that matters

Broil the fish slowly over a clear fire. Slow, even heat cooks the thick flesh through without drying or scorching the surface. A clear fire means steady flame rather than smoke or soot, which can taint the fish. Turning the fish helps it cook evenly.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes