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Turbot a LA Provencale

A fish dish of cooked turbot served with a sauce of truffles, shallots, carrot, mushrooms, stock, wine, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, stew the truffles, shallots, and carrot in stock and white wine until tender.

  2. Add the chopped mushrooms and season with pepper, salt, and allspice.

  3. Remove the carrot and thicken the sauce with flour and butter mixed with chopped parsley.

Serve

  1. Once the sauce is smooth, add the sliced turbot to warm it through.

  2. Serve hot, garnished with slices of bread.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

  5. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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; it is already cooked and only needs warming through in the sauce.
Truffles
Contribute a strong earthy aroma that flavours the stewed sauce.
Shallots
Soften during stewing and add a mild sweetness that builds the sauce's base flavour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce together with butter so it becomes smooth and coats the fish.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and a smooth texture when combined with flour.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and the sauce smoothed before the fish goes in; adding it raw or lumpy leaves a pasty taste and a grainy texture.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, truffle, shallot, carrot, white wine, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, truffle, shallot, carrot, white wine, mushroom, pepper. 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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