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Turbot and Brill

Turbot and brill served with Parisian sauce, reduced Alleinande sauce, breadcrumbs, consommé, and white wine, garnished with crayfish tails, mussels, oysters, mushrooms, and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turbot and Brill

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.

Poach the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the turbot in the oven and simmer gently for about 45 minutes, basting every 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the turbot and let it cool on a large dish, reserving the cooking liquid.

  4. Reduce the reserved liquid and mix it with the Parisian sauce.

Coat and bake

  1. Once cooled, place the turbot on a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Spread a thin layer of reduced Alleinande sauce over the turbot.

  3. Sprinkle with finely-sifted bread crumbs and moisten with consommé and wine.

  4. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until warmed through.

Serve

  1. Gently slide the turbot onto a serving dish and sauce it with the Parisian sauce.

  2. Garnish with crayfish tails, mussels, oysters, button mushrooms, and truffles tossed in glaze.

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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Turbot + crayfishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Forms the main body of the dish as the fish being cooked and served.
Alleinande sauce
Forms a thin savoury layer over the fish that adds flavour and moisture under the crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top of the fish during baking.
Consommé
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the fish as it bakes.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the savoury sauce and fish.

The step that matters

Gently slide the turbot onto a serving dish. Cooked fish is delicate and flakes easily, and the bread crumb coating can separate if handled roughly. Moving it gently keeps the portions intact and the crust in place for a clean presentation.

“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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