Why it works: Turbot and cream work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓
Turbot a LA Creme
Ingredients
Directions
Remove the flesh from the bones of the cold turbot and discard the dark skin.
Cut the fish into small squares and place it in a clean saucepan.
Prepare a cream sauce using equal parts milk and cream, adding a little additional flour.
Heat the turbot slowly in the sauce without allowing it to boil.
Serve the dish very hot.
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.
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Turbot + creamtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together127 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Turbot + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together143 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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