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To Boil Turbot

A boiled whole turbot served with parsley, lemon, horseradish, lobster sauce, anchovy sauce, and plain butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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

  1. Rub the turbot lightly with salt and hang it in a cold place if storing.

  2. Place the turbot in a kettle and cover it completely with cold water.

  3. Add a handful of coarse sea salt and ⅓ cup of vinegar to the water.

Cook

  1. Bring the water to a gradual boil, skimming off any impurities to maintain the fish's color.

Serve

  1. Serve the turbot garnished with curled parsley, lemon, and horseradish.

  2. Accompany with lobster sauce, anchovy sauce, and plain butter in separate dishes.

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. Parsley + lemontop 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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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, delicate flesh is the centrepiece of the dish.
Vinegar
Acidity in the poaching water helps keep the fish flesh white and firm.
Plain butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty contrast to the mild poached fish.

The step that matters

Bring the water to a gradual boil. Heating the water slowly and skimming off impurities keeps the fish tender and its surface clean and pale. Rapid boiling can break the flesh apart and cloud the appearance.

“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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