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Turbot to Fry

A fried turbot served with a sauce of wine, anchovy, spices, butter, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 110 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Turbot to Fry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the turbot across as if it were ribbed.

  2. Dry the fish and flour it.

  3. Heat enough boiling lard in a large frying pan to cover the fish.

  4. Fry the fish until brown, then drain it.

Make the sauce

  1. Clean the pan and add white wine to almost cover it.

  2. Add anchovy, salt, nutmeg, and a little ginger to the pan.

  3. Put the fish in the pan and let it stew until half the liquid is gone.

  4. Remove the fish and add butter rolled in flour and minced lemon to the pan.

  5. Simmer until the sauce thickens.

Serve

  1. Rub a hot dish with a shallot.

  2. Place the turbot in the dish.

  3. Pour the hot sauce over it.

  4. Serve.

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 + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked by frying and then gentle stewing.
Flour
Coats the fish so it browns in the hot lard and thickens the butter for the sauce.
Boiling lard
Conducts high heat to fry the floured fish, giving it a brown, crisp surface.
White wine
Forms the acidic liquid the fish stews in, which becomes the base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and body to the sauce when rolled in flour and melted in.
Anchovy
Melts into the sauce to add savory depth and saltiness.

The step that matters

Fry the fish until brown, then drain it.. Floured fish fries quickly in very hot lard; too little heat leaves it greasy and pale, while overcooking dries the flesh. Draining removes surface fat so the sauce stays clean.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter, lemon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter, lemon. 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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