Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓
Turbot, Baked
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the fish
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Empty, wash, and dry the turbot.
Grease a baking dish with butter and sprinkle with pepper, coarse sea salt, grated nutmeg, and chopped parsley.
Place the turbot in the dish and season the top with more seasoning.
Bake and make the sauce
Dot the fish with small pieces of butter, dredge with flour, and add the light wine and oyster broth or mushroom juice.
Bake the fish until done, then carefully transfer it to a serving dish and keep it warm.
To make the sauce, pour the baking dish liquid into a saucepan, thicken with flour and butter, and stir over heat for 1-2 minutes.
Serve the sauce in a tureen, adding optional ingredients as desired.
Serve
Garnish the turbot with scraped horseradish and sliced lemon.
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.
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,062 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
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, cooked whole and baked until done in the dish.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish brown and the sauce become silky.
- Flour
- Dredged over the fish and used with butter to thicken the baking liquid into a sauce.
- Light wine
- Adds moisture and acidity to the baking liquid, building flavour for the sauce.
- Oyster broth or mushroom juice
- Adds savoury, umami depth to the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce.
The step that matters
Thickening the sauce with flour and butter. Stirring the flour and butter into the hot baking liquid for a full minute or two cooks out the raw starch taste and lets the starch swell, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of staying thin or turning lumpy.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, butter, pepper, parsley, flour, wine, oyster):
- Thymefits better
- Capersfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Tarragonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, butter, pepper, parsley, flour, wine, oyster. 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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