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 ↓
Turbot Au Gratin
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
Cut the turbot into small dice, removing all skin and bones.
Place the fish in a saucepan and moisten with 4 tablespoons of béchamel sauce.
Heat the mixture thoroughly, but do not let it boil.
Bake and serve
Spread the mixture on a dish, cover with finely grated bread crumbs, and dot with small pieces of butter.
Brown it in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or under a salamander.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together372 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,934 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold turbot
- Provides the flaky fish that forms the body of the dish.
- Bechamel sauce
- Adds moisture and a creamy binding that keeps the fish from drying out.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden crust when browned in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat that helps the crumbs brown and enriches the flavour.
The step that matters
Heating without boiling. Heating the fish mixture thoroughly without boiling keeps the delicate fish tender and prevents the sauce from breaking or turning grainy.
“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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