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Turbot, Stuffed and Baked

A whole turbot stuffed with butter, herbs, and egg yolks, then baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turbot, Stuffed and Baked

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. Turn the turbot over and carefully lift the skin without cutting it off.

  2. In a bowl, mix butter, parsley, scallions, morels, sweet herbs, egg yolks, pepper, and salt.

  3. Spread the mixture over the underside of the fish, cover with the skin, and sew it up.

Baste and coat

  1. Melt some butter in a saucepan, then add an egg yolk, sweet herbs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Rub the fish all over with the butter mixture, then coat with bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake the fish in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until cooked through.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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
Forms the main body of the dish and holds the stuffing inside its skin.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing and add richness to the filling and basting mixture.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the coating brown.
Morels
Add an earthy, savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust that browns and crisps in the oven.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Lift the skin without cutting it off. The skin acts as a casing that holds the stuffing in place during sewing and baking. A torn or cut skin lets the filling leak out and dry or burn in the oven.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, butter, egg, pepper, 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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