Skip to main content
Main

Turbot

A baked turbot dish with a butter‑flour custard, onions, herbs, eggs, bread crumbs, and cheese.

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

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turbot

Oven, in the book's wordsThe hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “the hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the white fish, then remove the skin and bones.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Heat the hot milk and stir in the butter-flour mixture until smooth.

  3. Add the chopped onion, parsley, thyme, beaten eggs, salt, and pepper to the milk mixture.

  4. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil to form a smooth custard.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the fish in a baking dish, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.

  2. Pour the custard over the top layer of fish.

  3. Sprinkle grated bread crumbs and cheese on top.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the main body of the dish, holding its flaky texture under the custard.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour, and helps coat the flour smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable custard that holds the fish together.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it a soft, creamy texture.
Eggs
Set on heating to bind the custard so it firms up when baked.
Grated cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a gentle boil to form a smooth custard. Eggs set when heated, so boiling too hard or too fast can curdle the custard. Stirring steadily over gentle heat keeps it smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, flour, milk, parsley, thyme, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, milk, parsley, thyme, egg. 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.

More baked turbot recipes

Fillets 3 See all 24 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipes