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Turbot and Lobster Sauce

A fish dish of turbot served with a lobster sauce made from stock, anchovy sauce, cayenne pepper, roux, and lobster meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turbot and Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the turbot, wipe it dry, and prick it all over with a large needle.

  2. Rub the turbot with lemon juice and a little coarse sea salt.

Poach the turbot

  1. Place the turbot in a fish kettle and cover it with cold water.

  2. Add a handful of coarse sea salt and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off the scum and let it gently boil for about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

  4. Once cooked, lift the turbot out with a drainer and place it on a serving dish.

  5. Decorate with lemon and parsley, and serve with lobster sauce.

Make the lobster sauce

  1. For the lobster sauce, boil ½ pint of stock.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of anchovy sauce, cayenne pepper, and thicken with roux.

  3. Strain the sauce and add the lobster meat cut into pieces.

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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  5. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
The main fish, which is poached gently so its flesh cooks through and stays moist.
Lobster
Its meat is added to the sauce, giving it sweet shellfish flavour and texture.
Roux
Flour and fat cooked together, which thickens the stock into a smooth, coating sauce.
Anchovy sauce
Adds salty, savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gentle boiling of the turbot. A rolling boil toughens and breaks up delicate fish flesh, so it should simmer gently. Skimming off scum keeps the broth clear and the fish looking clean.

“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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