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Kadgiori of Turbot

A rice dish cooked with diced turbot, onion, butter, fish broth, cayenne pepper, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Kadgiori of Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the fillets from the turbot and cut them into large dice.

  2. Fry the turbot pieces in butter over high heat for 2 minutes.

  3. Season the fried turbot pieces and set aside.

Cook the rice

  1. In the same pan, fry the chopped onion in butter without browning it.

  2. Add the washed rice and stir for a few seconds.

  3. Moisten the rice with fish broth to three times its height.

  4. Boil the rice over high heat for 10-12 minutes.

  5. Keep the rice near the oven until nearly dry.

  6. Stir in the fried turbot, cayenne pepper, and white 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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Provides the main flesh, which is seared briefly to firm and add flavour before being folded into the rice.
Rice
Forms the body of the dish, absorbing the fish broth as it cooks until nearly dry.
Fish broth
Supplies the liquid that the rice absorbs, carrying savoury flavour through the grains.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the fish and onion, giving richness and gentle browning.
White sauce
Adds creaminess and moisture to the finished rice with the fish.

The step that matters

Fry the onion without browning it. Onion that browns turns bitter and dark, which would colour and flavour the rice. Keeping it pale and sweet lets the delicate fish and broth come through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, butter, rice, fish, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, butter, rice, fish, pepper, sauce. 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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