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Turbot — Continued

A whole turbot seasoned, wrapped in fish forcemeat, braised in white wine, finished with a glaze of Italian sauce and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 — Continued

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the bone from the Turbot, keeping the skin intact.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  3. Line the fish with fish forcemeat, tie it to maintain shape.

  4. Place on a well-buttered drainer and baste with warm butter.

Bake and glaze

  1. Pour over white wine, bring to a boil, cover, and cook in a slow oven for 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

  2. Brush the fish with glaze and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the cooking liquid into a saucepan, add Italian sauce and butter, reduce to a glaze, and pour over the fish 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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Fish + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently so the flesh stays moist and flakes.
Fish forcemeat
Adds a seasoned, tender layer that helps the fish hold its shape and stay moist.
White wine
Creates the cooking liquid that steams the fish and later forms the base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the glaze brown and shine.
Italian sauce
Thickens and flavours the reduced cooking liquid to form the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Slow oven cooking with basting. Cooking gently at a low heat keeps the delicate fish from drying out or breaking apart, while frequent basting with the liquid and butter keeps the surface moist and helps it cook evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, pepper, fish, butter, white wine, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, pepper, fish, butter, white wine, sauce. 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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