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Turbot, Ragout of

A baked turbot ragout with wine, lemon, butter, flour, egg, Parmesan, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turbot, Ragout of

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Butter a dish and coat it with grated Parmesan cheese.

Make the ragout

  1. Cut the fish into dice and cook it in dissolved butter and lemon juice for about 20 minutes.

  2. Add the flour mixed with the wine, boil, then remove from heat.

  3. Beat in the egg and season to taste, adding a couple of spoonfuls of melted butter or white sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the dish and sprinkle more grated cheese and bread crumbs on top.

  2. Pour over some melted butter and set the dish in a tin of hot water for 10 minutes in a moderate oven (350°F).

  3. Brown the surface delicately just before serving.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main body of the dish as flaky fish pieces that set into the ragout.
Egg
Binds the mixture as it cooks, helping it set into a spoonable, sliceable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying flavour through the fish and the top layer.
Flour
Thickens the wine liquid into a smooth base that holds the fish together.
Light wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and loosens the flour into a pourable sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on the surface, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Beat in the egg after the mixture has been removed from heat. If the egg goes into a boiling mixture it can scramble, so it should be stirred in off the heat to keep the sauce smooth and bind it evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, wine, egg, butter, flour, parmesan cheese, bread):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, wine, egg, butter, flour, parmesan cheese, bread. 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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