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To Boil Turbot

A boiled turbot seasoned with vinegar and sea salt, garnished with parsley, lemon, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 the fish

  1. Clean the turbot and rub it with vinegar to firm it up.

  2. Place the fish in a large fish kettle and cover it with cold water.

  3. Add vinegar and salt to the water.

Poach and serve

  1. Boil gently and skim off any scum to avoid discoloration.

  2. Once cooked, remove the fish and let it drain on a plate covered with a cloth.

  3. Garnish with curled parsley, lemon, and horseradish.

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. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
The main protein, which turns firm and flaky as it cooks in gently simmering water.
Vinegar
An acid that firms the flesh when rubbed on and added to the poaching water.

The step that matters

Boil gently and skim off the scum. A hard boil breaks up delicate fish and churns scum back onto the surface. Skimming it early keeps the flesh clean and prevents discoloration.

“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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