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Turbot a LA Creme

A baked turbot fillet topped with a creamy sauce, cheese, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish until cooked.

  2. Remove the bones from the fish.

  3. Season the fish with salt and pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine milk and flour in a pot.

  2. Add thyme, parsley, onions, salt, and white pepper to the pot.

  3. Heat the mixture on the stove until it thickens into a paste.

  4. Remove the pot from heat and stir in butter and egg yolks until well mixed.

  5. Pass the sauce through a sieve to remove solids.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer some sauce, then the fish, repeating until all ingredients are used.

  2. Top with remaining sauce.

  3. Sprinkle grated cheese and bread crumbs over the top.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35-40 minutes.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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 fish
Forms the flaky body of the dish, set within the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, becoming creamy when thickened.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Egg yolks
Enriches the sauce and adds body when stirred in off the heat.
Onions
Add savory aroma and sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter and egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Removing the pot from heat before stirring them in lets they thicken the sauce gently and smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, fish, pepper, milk, flour, thyme, parsley. 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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