Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Filleted Turbot
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Divide the fillets into neat pieces about the size of two fingers.
Dry the fillets and season with salt and pepper.
Cook
Melt a slice of butter in a frying pan.
Add a teaspoon of lemon juice.
Place the fillets side by side in the pan over medium heat.
Cook for a few minutes.
Turn the fillets over when half cooked.
Cook for about ten minutes total.
Drain the fillets on kitchen paper.
Serve
Arrange the fillets in a circle on a dish.
Pour shrimp sauce over the fillets.
Garnish with fried parsley in the center.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together372 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
-
Turbot + lemontop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together273 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Turbot fillets
- Provide the flaky white flesh that forms the main body of the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the fillets brown lightly in the pan.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavour of the fish.
The step that matters
Turning the fillets. Turning only once, at the halfway point, lets both sides cook through gently. Turning too early or too often can tear the delicate flesh and stop it from browning evenly.
“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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