Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Fish Turbot
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the fish
Steam the fish until tender, then remove bones and skin.
Make the white sauce
In a saucepan, combine milk, flour, and butter; season with salt.
Cook the mixture until the flour is fully cooked.
Assemble and bake
In a baking dish, layer the fish and white sauce alternately.
Top with cracker crumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Fish + milktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,432 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- White fish
- Forms the flaky body of the dish and carries its mild flavour.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth white sauce when cooked through.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavour through the sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
The step that matters
Cook the sauce until the flour is fully cooked. Flour that is not cooked long enough tastes raw and pasty and does not thicken properly. Cooking it while stirring gelatinises the starch and gives a smooth, stable sauce.
“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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