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Turtle Fish

A fish stew made with various fish, lobster, oysters, and seasoned with salt, cayenne, and optional wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and lobster work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 31 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turtle Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the fish into neat slices, wash, and clean them.

  2. Fry the fish in hot fat until lightly browned.

  3. Drain the fish and stew them in gravy thickened with flour and butter.

Season and add seafood

  1. Season the gravy highly with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the meat of the lobster and oysters with their liquor.

  3. Optionally, add a little wine.

Prepare the cods' sounds and serve

  1. Stew the cods' sounds in spinach juice until colored green.

  2. Cut the cods' sounds into neat squares and add to the gravy.

  3. Serve the preparation in a soup tureen.

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. Haddock + lobstertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Lobster + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh ling, haddock, or codling
Forms the main body of the dish, holding its shape as flakes in the gravy.
Skate
Adds firm, flavorful pieces of fish that hold together during stewing.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the fish and seafood.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the gravy.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savory flavor through their meat and liquor.
Lobster meat
Adds sweet, delicate seafood flavor and tender texture to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew the cods' sounds in spinach juice until colored green. Cooking in the green juice colors the sounds evenly, while overcooking toughens their texture and can make the delicate pieces rubbery.

“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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