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Turbot

Turbot croquettes made from boiled fish mixed with velouté, egg yolk, parsley, and breadcrumbs, then fried and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the Turbot and chop it finely.

  2. In a saucepan, reduce a little velouté sauce, then add the egg yolk and chopped parsley. Mix in the chopped fish and let the mixture cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into croquettes, dip them in beaten egg mixed with oil, salt, and pepper.

  2. Roll the croquettes in breadcrumbs and fry them in boiling fat until browned and crisp.

  3. Drain on a napkin and serve garnished with fried parsley and 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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 croquettes and gives them their flavour.
Veloute sauce
Binds the chopped fish into a mixture that holds its shape.
Egg yolk
Enriches the binding mixture and helps it set when cooked.
Sifted breadcrumbs
Forms a dry outer coating that browns and crisps in hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown and crisp the breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the croquettes absorb grease and the coating turns soggy before the filling is heated through.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, sauce, egg, parsley, pepper, 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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