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Turbot

Baked turbot topped with a milk and flour sauce, seasoned with parsley, thyme, onion, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turbot

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Steam the fish until cooked through.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from the fish and sprinkle with pepper and salt.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine milk, flour, parsley, thyme, and onion; stir over heat until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and sauce, finishing with a layer of sauce on top.

  2. Sprinkle with cheese and bread crumbs.

  3. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the flaky main body of the dish, cooked through by steaming before baking.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the layers together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy, moist texture.
Eggs
Set when stirred into the warm sauce, adding body and richness to it.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping during baking.
Cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs in off the heat. Eggs thicken when heated, so adding them to a very hot sauce can scramble them. Removing the pot from the heat first lets them blend smoothly and set gently during baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

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