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Turbot

A whole turbot cooked with herbs, white wine, vinegar, and a sauce of butter, anchovies, capers, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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. Rub alegar over the fish to firm it up.

  2. Place the fish belly upwards in a fish plate.

  3. Cover the fish tightly with a cloth.

  4. Boil water with plenty of salt and vinegar.

  5. Add the fish to the boiling water.

  6. Skim the water to prevent skin discoloration.

  7. Remove the fish carefully once cooked.

  8. Drain the fish.

  9. Remove the cloth.

  10. Transfer the fish to a serving dish.

Poach the fish

  1. In a stewpan, 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 white wine and vinegar.

  5. Add bay salt and whole pepper.

  6. Cook over gentle heat, gradually increasing until done.

  7. Keep the fish in the liquid while preparing the sauce.

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 until combined.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish before serving.

  4. Garnish with oyster patties or fried oysters.

  5. Serve with lobster or gravy 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. 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 gently in herbs, wine and vinegar until it flakes.
Butter
Melts into a rich base that carries the anchovy, caper and nutmeg flavours.
Anchovies
Melt into the butter sauce, adding salty, savoury depth.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny bite that balances the richness of the butter.
Flour
Thickens the butter sauce so it clings to the fish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the poaching liquid, gently flavouring the fish.

The step that matters

Skim the water to prevent skin discoloration.. Impurities and foam that rise while the fish cooks can settle on the skin and darken it. Keeping the surface clean and the heat gentle protects the fish's appearance and delicate texture.

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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