Skip to main content
Main

Turbot, Boiled

A boiled turbot seasoned with salt and pepper, served with lemon and garnished with lobster coral, parsley, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Empty and wash the turbot, trimming the fins but leaving them intact.

  2. Make an incision down the middle of the back to prevent the skin from cracking.

  3. Rub the white side of the fish with a cut lemon to enhance its whiteness.

Poach and serve

  1. Fill a turbot kettle with enough hot water to cover the fish and add salt to taste.

  2. Bring the water to a near boiling point, then gently simmer the fish for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Garnish with lobster coral, parsley, and cut lemon before serving with your choice of 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  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
Is the main protein, cooked whole so its firm flesh holds together while poaching.
Lemon
Rubbed on the skin for whiteness and used as a garnish, adding a bright, acidic note.

The step that matters

Simmer gently below a full boil. Keeping the water just under boiling lets the fish cook evenly and stay tender. A hard boil agitates the flesh, toughens the proteins and can break the skin.

“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 boiled turbot recipes

with Lobster Sauce 4Plain 3 See all 114 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipes