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Turbot

A boiled turbot seasoned with vinegar, salt, herbs, onion, and served with oyster patties and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and cleanse the fish thoroughly.

  2. Rub alegar over the fish to firm it up.

  3. Place the fish belly upwards in a fish plate and cover tightly with a cloth.

Boil

  1. Boil water with plenty of salt and vinegar until boiling.

  2. Add the fish to the boiling water and boil gently, skimming off any scum.

  3. Once cooked, carefully remove the fish and drain it.

Serve

  1. Remove the cloth and transfer the fish to a serving dish cautiously.

  2. Top with oyster patties or fried oysters, and serve with lobster or gravy sauce in boats, garnished with crisped parsley and pickles.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot fish
The main dish; its firm, mild flesh holds together during gentle boiling.
Alegar (or vinegar)
Rubbed on the fish to firm the flesh, and added to the water for acidity.
Onion
Adds a mild, sweet aromatic flavour to the poaching liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Gentle boiling and skimming. Boiling too hard breaks up the delicate fish flesh and churns scum back into the liquid. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer and skimming keeps the fish intact and the broth clean.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, fish, vinegar, thyme, parsley, chive, basil):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, fish, vinegar, thyme, parsley, chive, basil. 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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