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To Boil a Turbot

A boiled turbot served with a butter and lobster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 110 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Boil a Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the turbot in a mixture of salt and water for 1–2 hours, changing the water 5–6 times if needed.

  2. Fill the mouth and belly of the fish with salt.

Poach the turbot

  1. Combine spring water, salt, vinegar, and horseradish in a fish kettle.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Carefully place the turbot on a fish plate.

  4. Lower the turbot into the boiling water.

  5. Boil the fish until cooked, but do not overcook.

  6. Remove the fish kettle from heat.

  7. Let the fish drain on the plate.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt a generous amount of fresh butter in a pan.

  2. Add the lobster spawn and chopped lobster meat to the butter, along with a spoonful of anchovy liquor.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  4. Pour the sauce into serving bowls.

  5. Place the turbot on a serving dish.

  6. Garnish the turbot with scraped horseradish and lemon.

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Forms the main body of the dish; its firm, flaky flesh sets as it cooks in the hot water.
Fresh butter
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Lobster spawn
Thickens and enriches the butter sauce, adding colour and a delicate briny flavour.
Anchovy liquor
Adds savoury, salty depth that seasons the lobster butter sauce.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity to the poaching liquid, helping keep the fish flesh firm and white.

The step that matters

Boil the fish until cooked, but do not overcook. Fish proteins toughen and dry out quickly once past opaque and just tender. Removing it from the heat at the right moment keeps the flesh moist and delicate.

“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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