Skip to main content
Main

Turbot a LA Creme

A baked fish dish layered with cream, cheese, and a sauce of egg yolks, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish in plenty of strong salt water.

  2. Remove the bones from the fish. Flake the fish into large pieces.

Make the cream base

  1. Boil the cream in a pot while stirring in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the onion and parsley to the cream. Remove the onion and parsley after boiling.

  3. Melt the butter. Mix the melted butter into the cream after boiling.

Bake the dish

  1. Butter a deep dish.

  2. Layer fish, cream, and grated cheese in the dish, repeating until the dish is filled.

  3. Top the dish with a mixture of grated cheese and cracker crumbs.

  4. Bake for 1 hour.

Make and serve the sauce

  1. Whisk together the egg yolks, vinegar, and salt in a small saucepan. Rapidly whip the mixture.

  2. Add olive oil, mustard, parsley, cayenne, and lemon to the mixture. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  3. Serve the sauce hot over the fish.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Snapper or other fish
Forms the flaked body of the dish, holding its structure under the cream.
Cream
Makes a rich, smooth sauce that moistens the fish as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a silky mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the finishing sauce as they gently set with heat.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and browns on top for flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Bringing the egg yolk sauce to a boil. Egg yolks can scramble if overheated. Whisking them vigorously first and heating gently helps them thicken into a smooth sauce rather than curdling.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (snapper, cream, flour, onion, butter, cheese, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against snapper, cream, flour, onion, butter, cheese, egg. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipes