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Turbot a LA Creme

A baked turbot fillet layered with a creamy sauce and topped with crackers and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 and flake the fish.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine milk, thyme, parsley, and onion in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the mixture until well flavored.

  3. Wet the flour with a little water.

  4. Stir the wet flour into the milk mixture along with the butter.

  5. Cook the mixture until thickened.

  6. Strain the sauce over the egg yolks and mix well.

  7. Season the sauce with pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer sauce and fish in a pudding dish, repeating until full, finishing with sauce on top.

  2. Cover the dish with rolled crackers.

  3. Sprinkle grated cheese over the crackers if desired.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until browned.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the flaky body of the dish, holding its shape in layers with the sauce.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, providing moisture and a creamy texture.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded flavor.
Egg yolks
Enriches and thickens the sauce, adding body and richness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until thickened, then add the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; if the sauce is too hot when they are stirred in, they can scramble, leaving a grainy texture. Cook the flour sauce fully first so it is smooth before adding the yolks.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, thyme, parsley, flour, butter, egg. 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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