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Turbot to Boil

A boiled turbot seasoned with salt, red coral spawn, and garnished with parsley, lemon, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the Turbot and rub it lightly with salt.

  2. Keep it in a cold place for up to 2 days.

  3. Soak the fish in spring water with some salt for 1-2 hours before cooking.

  4. Score the skin across the thickest part of the back to prevent it from breaking.

Boil and serve

  1. In a fish kettle, add a large handful of salt to cold water and place the fish on a fish strainer.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, skim it well, then reduce the heat to simmer gently for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Once cooked, rub the Red Coral spawn through a fine sieve and sprinkle it over the Turbot.

  4. Garnish with sprigs of curled parsley, lemon slices, and finely scraped horseradish.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turbot + horseradishtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together70 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 fish, whose firm flesh holds together during gentle simmering.
Lobster red coral spawn
Adds a rich, briny flavour and a vivid colour to the finished fish.

The step that matters

Scoring the skin before cooking. Scoring the thick part of the back lets the skin relax and split neatly rather than tearing unevenly as the fish heats and the proteins contract.

“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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