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Turbot with Bechamel Sauce Boiled

A boiled turbot served with lemon, parsley garnish and bechamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Turbot with Bechamel Sauce Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the turbot.

  2. Rub the fish with lemon juice and a little salt.

Poach the fish

  1. In a turbot kettle, add enough water to cover the fish and a little salt.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then gently add the fish.

  3. Boil the fish for 25 minutes, removing any scum that forms.

Serve

  1. Carefully slide the fish onto a napkin, garnish with parsley, and serve with bechamel sauce.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Turbot + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Turbot + lemontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together273 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Lean white fish whose firm flesh holds together during poaching.
Lemon
Its acidity brightens the mild fish and seasons the flesh.
Bechamel sauce
A flour-thickened milk sauce that adds creamy moisture and richness to the mild fish.

The step that matters

Add the fish gently and skim the scum. Adding the fish to water that is already boiling and then keeping the liquid gently simmering helps the delicate flesh stay intact. Skimming the scum keeps the cooking liquid clear and the fish clean-tasting.

“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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