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To Boil Turbot

A boiled turbot seasoned with salt, horseradish, sweet herbs, served with lobster or anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and lobster work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

To Boil Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the turbot in pure water with salt and vinegar for 2 hours.

  2. Prepare enough water to cover the fish, adding horseradish, salt, and sweet herbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Remove the water from heat and let it cool before adding the turbot to prevent cracking.

  2. Boil the turbot for 20 minutes, then drain it.

  3. Garnish with curled parsley and serve with lobster or anchovy 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 + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turbot + horseradishtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Horseradish + lobstertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together89 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Turbot + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Is the main fish, cooked whole so its firm flesh holds together and flakes when done.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma to the poaching water that subtly flavours the fish.
Sweet herbs
Add aromatic flavour to the poaching water, perfuming the delicate fish.

The step that matters

Letting the water cool before adding the turbot. Putting fish into water that is still hot causes the outer flesh to toughen and crack quickly, while gentle heat lets the proteins set evenly and keeps the fish intact.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, horseradish, lobster):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, horseradish, lobster. 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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