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Fish Turbot

A baked fish dish made with boiled turbot, milk, butter, flour, onion, parsley, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, heat 1 quart of milk over medium heat.

  2. Season the milk with salt and pepper.

  3. In a bowl, mix ½ cup of butter and ½ cup of flour until smooth, then stir into the hot milk.

  4. Once thickened, add 1 small chopped onion, 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley, and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fold in the boiled fish and pour the mixture into shells or a baking dish.

  2. Top with bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

White fish
Provides the main body and flavour of the bake, flaked into the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that carries the fish.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, dotted on top, promotes browning of the crumbs.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the fish together.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the hot milk. Lumps form if the roux-style paste is not fully smooth before it meets the hot milk. Whisking until smooth and stirring while the milk heats lets starch granules disperse evenly and thicken the sauce without clumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, 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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