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Boiled Turbot with Tartar Sauce

A boiled turbot served with a tartar sauce made from egg yolks, olive oil, tarragon vinegar, pickled gherkins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Turbot with Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Prepare the fish by placing it in a fish kettle with salt, parsley, lemon juice, and enough cold water to cover it.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer gently until the fish is tender.

  3. Once the fish is cooked, drain it carefully and place it on a hot dish lined with a napkin or decorative paper.

Make the tartar sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and gradually add olive oil, alternating with tarragon vinegar, until the sauce thickens.

  2. Stir in the chopped gherkins, black pepper, and cayenne.

Serve

  1. Garnish with parsley and lemon quarters, and serve with the sauce in a sauceboat.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot fish
Is the main protein, cooked gently in simmering water until tender and flaky.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with oil to thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture.
Olive oil
Forms the rich body of the sauce when whisked into the egg yolks.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Pickled gherkins
Add sharp, tangy bite and texture to the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, brightening the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the egg yolks. Oil must be added slowly, alternating with vinegar, so the yolk lecithin can emulsify it. Adding it too fast makes the sauce break and separate instead of thickening.

“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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