Skip to main content
Main

Turbot

A salted and vinegar‑soaked turbot, boiled with horseradish and herbs, served with lobster and anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the turbot in pump water with salt and vinegar for 2 hours.

  2. Combine enough water, sliced horseradish, and a handful of salt in a fish kettle.

  3. When the water tastes seasoned, remove it from heat and let it cool.

  4. Stuff the turbot's mouth and belly with salt, then place it in the kettle.

Poach and garnish

  1. Boil gently for about 20 minutes until cooked.

  2. Drain the fish and garnish with fried emelts, sliced lemon, scraped horseradish, and barberries.

Serve

  1. Serve with lobster and anchovy sauce.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Turbot + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
The main fish, whose flesh firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma that flavours the poaching water and the garnish.
Lobster sauce
A rich, savoury sauce that contrasts with the mild, delicate fish.

The step that matters

Boil gently. At a hard boil, the delicate fish flesh can break apart and toughen. Keeping the water just simmering cooks the turbot evenly and keeps it 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.

More turbot recipes

Boiled 114Baked 24au Gratin 17Broiled 9Salmon 8Fish 8 See all 17 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesHorseradish SauceHorseradish Sauce17 recipes