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Fish Turbot

A baked fish pudding made with turbot, oysters, milk, flour, butter, egg yolks, celery, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish Turbot

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 not quite done, then remove and pick out all bones.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine oysters, milk, flour, butter, and egg yolks; let boil together.

  2. Add the fish to the sauce and season with pepper and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish and add chopped celery.

  2. Sift breadcrumbs over the top and dot with small bits of butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  4. Garnish with fried oysters or fried potatoes before serving.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the sauce and bind it into a creamy custard-like texture.
Flour
Flour thickens the milk and butter into a smooth sauce that holds the fish together.
Milk
Milk forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it moisture and richness.
Oysters
Oysters add a briny, savory flavor to the sauce.
Firm fish
Firm fish holds its shape in the pudding and forms the main body of the dish.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the sauce. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture boils too hard or too long they can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the sauce at a gentle boil while it thickens.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, oyster, milk, flour, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, oyster, milk, flour, butter, egg, pepper. 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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