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Fillets of Turbot Fried in Batter

Battered fillets of turbot fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fillets of Turbot Fried in Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a batter by mixing the egg, baked flour, and milk until smooth.

  2. Cut cold turbot into fillets, each 3 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.

  3. Dip each fillet into the batter.

Fry

  1. Fry the fillets in boiling lard until they are pale brown.

  2. You can use brill, cod, plaice, or sole instead of turbot.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Flour + turbottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + turbottop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together79 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Helps bind the batter and sets with heat to give the coating structure.
Baked flour
Thickens the batter and forms a light coating that crisps when fried.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and loosens it for an even coat.
Turbot fillets
The main fish, whose flaky white flesh cooks through inside the coating.
Lard
Transfers heat to the batter and promotes browning of the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets in boiling lard until they are pale brown. The lard must be hot enough for the batter to set quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs more fat and turns greasy, and the fish may cook unevenly before the crust forms.

“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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