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Turbot, Boiled

A boiled turbot served with a cream sauce of eschalots, parsley, chives, and butter, topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turbot, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Poach the turbot

  1. Place the turbot in a kettle with vinegar or wine and enough water to cover it.

  2. Bring the fish to a boil over high heat.

  3. Cover the kettle with buttered paper and simmer for 1 to 2 hours.

  4. Check if the fish is done by pressing it; it should bend under your finger.

  5. Serve the fish on a folded napkin with lobster, shrimp, or anchovy sauce on the side.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a pan.

  2. Add eschalots, parsley, and chives to the melted butter.

  3. Mix in flour.

  4. Add cream and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Boil the sauce until thick, stirring constantly.

  6. Strain the sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cooked fish in a pie dish.

  2. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  3. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  4. Drizzle with clarified butter.

  5. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  6. Serve in the dish it was cooked in.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together611 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

Turbot
Is the main protein, cooked gently in liquid so it stays moist and flakes.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with richness and carries flavour, and browns the crumb topping.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, stable sauce.
Cream
Adds body and richness to the sauce, mellowing its texture.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Simmering the turbot gently. Boiling vigorously toughens and breaks up delicate fish proteins. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer cooks the flesh evenly so it stays tender and flakes cleanly.

“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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