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Turbot a LA Francaise

Stuffed turbot baked with mushrooms, oysters, and a French sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and dry the turbot, removing fins and tail.

  2. Cut down the center of the back from head to tail and carefully raise the fillets.

  3. Cut through the backbone at the head and tail, removing it without breaking the fish.

  4. Season the fish with salt, white pepper, and lemon juice.

  5. Mince half the mushrooms and mix with bread crumbs, sweet herbs, grated lemon rind, and seasoning.

  6. Add the egg to the mixture and stuff it inside the fish, then close it neatly.

Bake

  1. Place the fish in a buttered baking tin and pour in ½ pint of white stock, 2 tablespoons of mushroom liquid, and oyster liquid.

  2. Add the beards from the oysters to the tin, cover with buttered paper, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 40 minutes, basting occasionally.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the fish to a serving dish and warm the oyster and remaining mushrooms in the liquid.

  2. Make Sauce à la Française with the liquid, pour over the fish, and garnish with mushrooms and oysters.

  3. Serve with additional sauce in a tureen.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the flesh that is stuffed and baked.
Egg
Binds the minced mushroom and crumb stuffing so it holds together during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and texture.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stuffing and the finished garnish.
Oysters
Add a briny flavour to the cooking liquid and the garnish.

The step that matters

Baking at a low temperature with basting. Baking gently at 300°F keeps the delicate turbot flesh moist and tender. Basting returns liquid to the surface, helping prevent the fish from drying out over 40 minutes.

“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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