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Turbot to Boil

A whole turbot is boiled, then garnished with red coral spawn, parsley, lemon, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turbot to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the turbot and rub it lightly with coarse sea salt.

  2. Keep it in a cold place.

  3. Soak the fish in spring water with some salt for 1-2 hours before cooking.

  4. Score the skin across the thickest part of the back to prevent it from breaking.

Poach

  1. In a fish kettle, add a large handful of salt to cold water and place the fish on a fish strainer.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, skim it well, then reduce the heat to simmer gently for 15-20 minutes.

  3. Once cooked, rub the Red Coral spawn through a hair sieve and sprinkle it over the turbot.

  4. Garnish with sprigs of curled parsley, sliced lemon, and finely scraped horseradish.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Turbot + smelttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Firm white fish flesh that holds its shape and flakes when poached gently.
Red coral spawn of lobster
Adds a rich, briny flavour and a red colour to the finished fish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the boil. Once the water boils and is skimmed, reducing to a gentle simmer keeps the fish from breaking apart. A hard boil toughens the proteins and tears the delicate flesh.

“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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