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Salt Water Fish, Turbot

A simple boiled turbot seasoned with lemon and coarse sea salt, served with fresh parsley.

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 ↓

Salt Water Fish, Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the turbot and wash out all the blood.

  2. Rub the fish with lemon and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add a large handful of salt.

  2. Place the turbot in the boiling water, cover, and cook for 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size.

  3. Drain the fish and serve on a cloth, garnished with fresh parsley.

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. 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
Is the main protein; its firm, flaky flesh sets as it cooks in the hot water.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish directly and, in the cooking water, flavours the poaching liquid.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Cooking time in the boiling water. Fish proteins set and turn opaque as they heat, and overcooking makes the flesh dry and tough. Larger fish need more time, so checking doneness near the start of the range helps prevent this.

“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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