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Turbot Pie

A baked turbot pie with pepper, sea salt, cloves, nutmeg, sweet herbs, egg yolks, onion, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Turbot Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Parboil the turbot and season it with pepper, coarse sea salt, cloves, nutmeg, and sweet herbs.

  2. Place the turbot in a dish, add the yolks of eggs and an onion.

  3. Cover the top with fresh butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until cooked through.

  2. Remove the onion before serving.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 pie, flaking into tender pieces when cooked through.
Yolks of eggs
Bind the fish and help the filling set into a rich, cohesive texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Fish turns from translucent to opaque and flakes when its proteins set. Underbaking leaves it raw near the bone, while overbaking dries it out and toughens it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, pepper, clove, nutmeg, egg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, pepper, clove, nutmeg, egg, butter. 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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