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Turbot, with White Sauce

A whole turbot cooked with herbs, leeks, vinegar, wine, and a sauce of butter, anchovies, capers, leeks, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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, with White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the turbot

  1. Place fresh herbs in a stewpan and lay the turbot on top.

  2. Sprinkle with more herbs, salt, pepper, and the cut leek.

  3. Cover the fish with equal parts vinegar and white wine.

  4. Boil over moderate heat until the fish is cooked through.

Make the white sauce

  1. In the meantime, melt the butter in a separate pan.

  2. Add the anchovies, capers, shredded leeks, salt, pepper, nutmeg, a little vinegar, and water.

  3. Stir constantly until heated through and slightly thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve the turbot on a plate and pour the sauce over it.

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 + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together669 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-mentha-1,3,8-triene (camphor, herbal).

  3. Thyme + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Thyme + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted butter forms the rich base of the sauce, giving it body and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the warm butter, adding savoury depth to the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
White wine
Along with vinegar, acidifies the poaching liquid, gently flavouring the fish as it cooks.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like aroma to the poaching liquid and the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce constantly as it heats. Butter and egg-free emulsions can separate or scorch if heated unevenly or left unattended. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the butter-based sauce smooth and lightly thickened rather than broken or burnt.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, parsley, thyme, dill, pepper, vinegar, white wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, parsley, thyme, dill, pepper, vinegar, white wine. 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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