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Turbot

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Dry the turbot and flour it.

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

  3. Fry the turbot until brown, then drain it.

  4. Clean the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add white wine, anchovy, salt, nutmeg, and ginger.

  2. Add the fish.

  3. Let it stew until half the liquid is gone.

  4. Remove the fish.

  5. Add butter rolled in flour and minced lemon to the pan.

  6. Simmer until the sauce thickens.

Serve

  1. Rub a hot dish with shallot.

  2. Place the turbot in the dish.

  3. Pour the hot sauce over it.

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
Is the main fish, cooked by frying and then gently stewing in the sauce.
Flour
Coats the fish for browning and, mixed with butter, thickens the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce, adding richness and smooth body as it melts.
White wine
Forms the sauce base, adding acidity and flavour as it reduces.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and fresh aroma to the sauce.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the sauce, giving a salty, umami note.

The step that matters

Simmer until the sauce thickens. Flour-thickened sauces need gentle simmering so the starch swells fully and the flour loses its raw taste. Too little heat leaves the sauce thin and floury, while boiling hard can break it.

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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