Name: To Boil a Turbot
Ingredients: 1 Turbot, cleaned; ½ cup vinegar; 1 handful coarse sea salt; 1 cup water; Fried oysters or eels for garnish; Lobster or shrimp sauce for serving

Why it works: Turbot and lobster work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 163 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

To Boil a Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Wash the turbot thoroughly but do not soak it in water.
Rub the fish with vinegar.
Place the fish on a fish plate, white side up.
Cover the fish with a cloth.
Pin the cloth tight under the plate.

Boil

Place the fish in a kettle with cold water.
Add coarse sea salt and vinegar to the water.
Boil gradually for about 20 minutes.
Carefully remove the fish from the kettle.
Drain the fish.

Serve

Take off the cloth.
Transfer the fish to a serving dish.
Garnish the fish with fried oysters or eels.
Serve the fish with lobster or shrimp sauce in tureens.

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.

Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Oyster + lobstertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together255 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Vinegar + lobstertop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together692 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Turbot + vinegartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 firm white flesh sets into flakes when gently poached.
Vinegar: Rubbed on the fish and added to the water, it adds a sharp acidity that brightens the flavour.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the poaching water so the fish is lightly seasoned as it cooks.