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Turbot a LA Creme Au Gratin

A baked turbot dish with a creamy sauce, grated cheese, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Turbot a LA Creme 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.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk with the onion, parsley, and thyme for 20 minutes.

  2. Mix a little cold milk with the flour, then add it to the boiled milk along with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. When thickened, remove from heat and stir in the butter, egg yolks, and Gruyere cheese.

  4. Pass the mixture through a coarse sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer sauce, fish, sauce, and fish again.

  2. Top with sauce, then sprinkle with bread crumbs and Gruyere cheese.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes until browned.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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

Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, cooked with aromatics and thickened into a smooth, creamy binder.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable sauce that holds the fish together.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Gruyere cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the topping brown and form a golden crust.
Boiled fish
Provides the main protein, set in layers within the creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble or curdle if the sauce is too hot. Removing the pan from heat before stirring them in keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, parsley, thyme, flour, pepper, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, parsley, thyme, flour, pepper, nutmeg, 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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