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Turbot

A whole turbot cooked in a seasoned broth and served with a butter anchovy caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Thoroughly wash and cleanse the turbot.

  2. Rub allegar over the fish for firmness.

  3. Place the fish belly upwards in a fish plate and cover tightly with a cloth.

  4. Boil in hard water with plenty of salt and vinegar, skimming to prevent discoloration.

  5. Add the fish only when the water is boiling.

  6. Once cooked, carefully drain and remove the cloth.

  7. Transfer the fish to a dish cautiously to avoid breaking.

Poach with herbs

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

  2. Place the fish on top of the herbs.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with chives and sweet basil.

  4. Cover the fish with equal parts white wine and vinegar.

  5. Add bay salt and whole pepper.

  6. Heat the stew-pan gently, gradually increasing the temperature until the fish is cooked.

  7. Let the fish sit in the liquid.

Make the sauce and serve

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

  2. Shake the sauce continuously until combined and hot.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  4. Garnish the fish with oyster patties or fried oysters.

  5. Serve the fish with lobster or gravy sauce, crisped parsley, and pickles.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 so its firm flesh holds together through poaching.
Butter
Melts into the sauce to give it richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a sauce that clings to the fish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the poaching liquid, flavouring the fish as it cooks.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich butter sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the stew-pan gently. Raising the heat gradually and keeping it gentle lets the fish cook evenly and stay intact. Fast or hard heat toughens the proteins and can break the delicate flesh.

Swap the onion

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

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

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