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Turbot a LA Cream Au Graten

A baked turbot fillet topped with a creamy sauce, breadcrumbs, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,907 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Cream Au Graten

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish until cooked, then let it cool.

  2. Remove all bones.

  3. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper and salt.

Make the sauce

  1. Make the sauce by rubbing together the flour and butter.

  2. Chop the onions and stir them into the milk.

  3. Bring the milk to a boil.

  4. Pour the hot milk into the flour and butter mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Add the remaining ingredients.

  6. Stir over low heat until thickened.

  7. Mix in the beaten egg yolks.

  8. Pass the sauce through a sieve after boiling.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and sprinkle it with parsley.

  2. Add a layer of sauce.

  3. Repeat layering until the dish is full.

  4. Ensure the top layer is fish.

  5. Sprinkle the top fish layer with bread crumbs and grated cheese.

  6. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for half an hour.

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. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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, firming and flaking as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats and moistens the fish.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and combines with flour to form the thickening base.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they set gently over low heat.
Onions
Add savoury aroma and mild sweetness to the milk-based sauce.

The step that matters

Mix in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set and curdle if the sauce gets too hot. Keep the sauce on low heat and below a boil so the yolks thicken it smoothly rather than turning grainy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, milk, flour, onion, butter, nutmeg, thyme):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, milk, flour, onion, butter, nutmeg, thyme. 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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