Name: Turbot a LA Bechamel
Ingredients: Turbot, boiled; Bechamel sauce; Potato croquettes or fleurons of puff paste or croutons of bread

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 a LA Bechamel

Ingredients

Turbot, boiled
Bechamel sauce
Potato croquettes or fleurons of puff paste or croutons of bread

Directions

Prepare a rich cream Bechamel sauce.
Add the flakes of boiled turbot to the sauce and toss lightly on the fire.
Serve the turbot piled on a dish in the shape of a dome.
Garnish with potato croquettes, fleurons of puff paste, or croutons of bread.

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.

Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together248 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + potatotop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,073 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Turbot + potatotop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together26 recipes

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