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Turbot Au Bechamel, Or, in Bechamel Sauce

Turbot served in béchamel sauce with fried bread and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Turbot Au Bechamel, Or, in Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the cold turbot, removing all skin.

Heat and serve

  1. Heat the turbot in a rich béchamel sauce.

  2. Serve in a vol-au-vent or deep dish with a border of fried bread cut elegantly. Use one dark and one light sippet, placed alternately.

Finish the top

  1. Cover the surface with a half-inch layer of well-drained and dried fried bread-crumbs.

  2. Alternatively, spread un-fried bread-crumbs over the fish, moisten with clarified butter, and brown with a salamander.

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 + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, flaking tender when gently heated through in sauce.
Rich béchamel sauce
Provides a creamy, moist coating that keeps the fish from drying out.
Fried bread
Adds crisp contrast and a toasty flavour to the border around the fish.
Clarified butter
Carries fat to the bread-crumbs so they brown evenly under the salamander.
Bread-crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden crust over the surface when browned.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the fried bread-crumbs. Wet crumbs steam instead of crisping, so they turn soggy rather than forming a golden crust over the sauce.

“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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