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Fish Turbot

Baked turbot served with a creamy milk, onion, parsley, and butter sauce, topped with breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.

Poach the fish

  1. Tie the fish in a cloth and boil in water with ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt until cooked.

  2. Remove the fish and pick it into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine 1 pint of new milk, 3 slices of onion, 1 sprig of parsley, and 2-3 teaspoons of butter.

  2. Add 1 egg, ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt, and 2-3 tablespoons of flour.

  3. Heat and stir until the mixture creams, then strain it through a sieve.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the fish and sauce in a dish until all the fish is used.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the dish, flaked into the sauce and layers.
New milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a soft, creamy body.
Egg
Thickens the sauce and helps it set when heated and baked.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it becomes a smooth, stable sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth texture and flavour.
Bread crumbs
Forms a topping that browns in the oven, adding a crisp surface.

The step that matters

Heat and stir until the mixture creams. Flour and egg thicken as they heat, but if the mixture is left unstirred it can scorch or turn lumpy. Constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth before straining.

Swap the onion

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

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

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