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Turbot, Stewed

A stewed turbot dish with butter, anchovy, mushroom ketchup, walnut pickle, claret, and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turbot, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the turbot thoroughly and dry it well.

  2. Cut the fish into thin slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine melted butter, salt, cayenne pepper, anchovy, mushroom ketchup, walnut pickle, and claret in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the sauce to a boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the fish slices in hot fat until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

  2. Drain the fish and add it to the sauce.

  3. Let the mixture simmer gently for 5 minutes.

  4. Carefully lift the fish with a fish slicer and place it on a hot dish.

  5. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  6. Serve immediately, garnished with sliced lemon.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Turbot + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

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

  4. Turbot + ketchuptop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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, holding its shape as the flesh cooks through.
Melted butter
Adds richness and carries flavour through the sauce and onto the fish.
Anchovy
Adds a deep, savoury background note that rounds out the sauce.
Claret
Provides acidity and wine flavour that thins and brightens the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the fish slices. Fish is delicate and breaks easily; frying in hot fat until only lightly browned sets the outside so the slices hold together when they are later simmered in the sauce.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, butter, pepper, anchovy, mushroom, ketchup, lemon):

  1. Walnutthe original
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasfits less well
  4. Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, butter, pepper, anchovy, mushroom, ketchup, lemon. 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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