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Turbot, Baked

Baked turbot seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, parsley, flour, wine, and oyster broth, served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turbot, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Empty, wash and dry the turbot.

  3. Rub a baking dish with butter.

  4. Sprinkle the dish with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and parsley.

  5. Place the turbot in the dish.

  6. Season the top of the turbot with more seasoning.

  7. Dot the fish with small pieces of butter.

  8. Dredge the fish with flour.

Bake

  1. Add the light wine and oyster broth or mushroom juice.

  2. Bake for 20-30 minutes, depending on size.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Pour the baking dish liquid into a saucepan.

  2. Thicken the liquid with flour and butter.

  3. Stir over heat for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Serve the sauce in a tureen.

  5. Garnish the turbot with horseradish, lemon, fried bread, or parsley.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
The main fish, which is baked whole and forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish and sauce carry flavour.
Flour
Coats the fish and later thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Light wine
Adds acidity and moisture to the baking dish, building the sauce base.
Oyster broth or mushroom juice
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the liquid that becomes the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the liquid with flour and butter. Flour needs to be cooked in the hot liquid for a short time to lose its raw taste and thicken smoothly. Stirring keeps it from lumping, which is why the sauce needs steady heat for the stated 1-2 minutes.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour, wine, oyster):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour, wine, oyster. 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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