Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓
To Boil Turbot
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the turbot in pump water with salt and vinegar for 2 hours.
Prepare enough water to cover the fish, adding horse-radish, salt, and sweet herbs.
Remove the water from heat and let it cool before adding the turbot to prevent cracking.
Boil the turbot for 20 minutes, then drain it.
Garnish with curled parsley and serve with lobster or anchovy sauce.
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.
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Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together529 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
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Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together163 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Radish + parsleytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together120 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Horse + parsleytop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together83 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
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Turbot + parsleytop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together264 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, horse, radish, lobster):
- Capersfits better
- Parsleythe original
- Garlicfits about as well
- Turmericfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, horse, radish, lobster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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