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Turbot, Boiled

A boiled turbot seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon, served with garnish and optional sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare the fish

  1. Empty and wash the fish, trimming the fins but not cutting them off.

  2. Make an incision down the middle of the back to prevent the skin from cracking.

  3. Rub the white side of the fish with a cut lemon to enhance its whiteness.

Boil and serve

  1. Fill a large pot with enough hot water to cover the fish and add salt to taste.

  2. Bring the water to a near boiling point, then gently simmer the fish for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Garnish with lobster coral, parsley, and cut lemon.

  4. Serve with Hollandaise, anchovy, shrimp, or lobster sauce.

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Turbot + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together264 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 body of the dish, cooked whole so its flesh stays moist and flaky.
Lemon
Rubbed on the skin to enhance whiteness, and its acidity brightens the finished dish.

The step that matters

Gently simmer the fish. Keeping the water just below a full boil and simmering gently cooks the flesh evenly and keeps it tender. A hard boil can break up the delicate flesh and toughen the outer layers.

“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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