Why it works: Turbot and smelt share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 26 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Turbot
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the turbot in water with salt and vinegar for 2 hours.
In a fish kettle, combine water, sliced horseradish, and sweet herbs.
Remove the seasoned water from heat and let it cool.
Cook
Stuff the turbot's mouth and belly with salt.
Place the stuffed turbot in the kettle.
Boil gently for about 20 minutes until cooked.
Drain the cooked turbot.
Garnish and serve
Garnish with fried smelts, sliced lemon, scraped horseradish, and barberries.
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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Turbot + smelttop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together26 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,155 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Horseradish + smelttop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together22 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Turbot + horseradishtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together70 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Smelt + lemontop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together156 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Turbot
- The main fish; gentle poaching cooks its flesh to a moist, flaky texture.
- Horseradish
- Adds sharp, pungent aroma that flavours the poaching water and the fish.
- Sweet herbs
- Contribute aromatic flavour to the poaching water.
The step that matters
Boil gently. Vigorous boiling agitates and overcooks the delicate flesh, toughening it and causing it to break apart. A gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly while keeping it moist and intact.
“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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