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Turbot

A fried turbot served with a sauce of claret, white wine, anchovy, spices, butter, lemon, and shallot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 110 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the fish

  1. Dust the cleaned turbot with flour.

  2. Heat enough hot lard in a pan to cover the fish.

  3. Fry the turbot until it is nice and brown.

  4. Carefully remove the turbot from the lard and drain the fat.

Make the sauce

  1. In the same pan, add claret, white wine, anchovy, salt, nutmeg, and ginger.

  2. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.

  3. Add the butter and minced lemon.

  4. Let the sauce simmer until thickened.

Serve

  1. Rub a hot dish with shallot.

  2. Place the turbot in the dish.

  3. Pour the sauce over the turbot.

  4. Serve.

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. Turbot + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 by frying until brown and then served in the sauce.
Claret
Adds acidity and body to the sauce as it reduces, giving it depth of flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity to the sauce and helps it reduce to a concentrated liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and, rolled in flour, helps thicken the simmering sauce.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter and lard.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the sauce, blending into it as it simmers.

The step that matters

Frying the turbot until nice and brown. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the floured surface in hot fat. Fat that is too cool soaks into the fish, leaving it greasy and pale rather than crisp and brown.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter, lemon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, flour, white wine, anchovy, nutmeg, butter, lemon. 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.

More turbot recipes

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