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Turbot to Boil

A boiled turbot flavored with herbs, anchovies, capers, and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turbot to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. In a stew pan, combine thyme, parsley, sweet herbs, and sliced onion.

  2. Place the turbot in the pan and sprinkle with the same herbs, chives, and sweet basil.

  3. Cover the fish with cold water and vinegar, then add coarse sea salt and whole pepper.

  4. Heat the stew pan gently, gradually increasing the heat until boiling.

  5. Once cooked, remove from heat and let the fish sit in the liquid.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt butter and add anchovies, capers, chives, pepper, salt, nutmeg, flour, vinegar, and water.

  2. Stir until combined and heated through, then pour over the fish.

  3. Serve the turbot on a dish with some sauce poured over it and the rest in a sauce tureen.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 gently in the herbed liquid until it sets flaky and moist.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the sauce, giving it richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Anchovies
Melt into the butter, adding a deep savoury flavour to the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich butter.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquids into a smoother, more cohesive sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the stew pan gently. Bringing the liquid to a boil slowly keeps the delicate fish from toughening and breaking apart, so it stays moist and tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, thyme, parsley, chive, basil, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, thyme, parsley, chive, basil, vinegar, pepper. 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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