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Stewed Turbot

A stew of turbot cooked with butter, wine, herbs, mushrooms, cream, and Neapolitan sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stewed Turbot

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.

Poach the fish

  1. Place the turbot, butter, wine, herbs, and water or fish stock in a stewpan.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, cover with buttered paper, and cook slowly at 300°F (150°C) until the fish is tender.

  3. Remove the fish and keep it warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the mushrooms and add them to the fish liquor.

  2. Simmer until done.

  3. Remove the herbs.

  4. Skim the liquid.

  5. Add the cream and Neapolitan sauce.

  6. Heat again.

Serve

  1. Pour over the fish before serving.

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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Turbot + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Is the main protein, cooked gently until tender and flaky in the stewing liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooking liquor and sauce.
Marsala or port wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour that carries into the reduced liquor.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the finished sauce a smooth, rounded texture.
Button mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and a tender bite to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the fish slowly until just tender. Gentle, low-temperature cooking keeps the delicate fish moist and prevents its proteins from tightening and drying out. Overcooking makes turbot firm and dry.

“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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