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A fish fillet cooked with white wine, vinegar, anchovies, capers, leeks, and a butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,294 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Place the fish on a bed of sliced onion and herbs.

  2. Pour equal parts white wine and vinegar over the fish to cover it.

  3. Sprinkle with grey salt and coarse pepper.

  4. Cook the fish over moderate heat until done, then remove from heat but leave in the saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter and add anchovies, capers, leeks, pepper, salt, nutmeg, flour, vinegar, and water.

  2. Cook these ingredients over heat, then warm the fish again.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish with some sauce poured over it and horseradish on the side.

  2. Serve the remaining sauce in a separate dish.

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. Basil + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Leek + basiltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 that is cooked gently until flaky and done.
Butter
Melted to form the rich base of the sauce, adding fat and smooth body.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the warm butter to add savory depth to the sauce.
Capers
Add sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Flour
Thickens the butter and sauce ingredients so they cling to the fish.
White wine
Flavors and moistens the fish as it poaches with the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook the fish over moderate heat until done. Fish proteins set and turn opaque at moderate heat, and overcooking makes the flesh dry and firm. Removing it from heat while it stays in the hot liquid lets it finish gently.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, onion, leek, white wine, vinegar, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, onion, leek, white wine, vinegar, pepper, butter. 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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