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To Boil Turbot

A whole turbot is seasoned, boiled, and served with horseradish, parsley, lobster sauce, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Boil Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Rub the turbot with coarse sea salt and lemon.

  2. Cover the fish with lukewarm water.

Cook

  1. Place it on a slow fire and cook until it boils. Be careful not to break the fish.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with horseradish and parsley.

  2. Serve with lobster sauce and plain butter in separate boats.

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. Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 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
Is the main fish, cooked gently in water so its flesh becomes tender and flaky.
Lobster sauce
Adds a rich, savoury flavour that complements the mild flesh of the fish.
Plain butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the mild taste of the poached fish.

The step that matters

Bringing the water to a boil slowly. Gentle, slow heating keeps the water from churning and helps the delicate fish flesh stay intact rather than breaking apart and falling into flakes.

“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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