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Turbot, Soles, and Flat Fish, a LA Franfoise

A stew of turbot, soles, and flat fish simmered in wine, vinegar, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 455 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Turbot, Soles, and Flat Fish, a LA Franfoise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the fish.

  2. Place the fish in an earthen dish with water and vinegar and let them soak for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the fish from the dish and dry them with a cloth.

Stew

  1. Place the fish in a stewpan.

  2. Add white wine, water, marjoram, winter savory, and an onion with cloves to the stewpan.

  3. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the fish.

  4. Cover the stewpan and stew until done.

  5. Remove the fish and keep them warm.

Thicken and serve

  1. To the cooking liquid, add butter rolled in flour.

  2. Boil the mixture until thick.

  3. Strain the thickened liquid over the fish.

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. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Winter savory + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together690 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Winter savory + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together661 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the cooking liquid and, with flour, helps thicken it into a sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid when cooked with butter, giving the sauce body.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid, flavouring the fish as it cooks.
Vinegar
Acidity in the soaking liquid firms the fish and sharpens its flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick. Flour must be fully cooked in the hot butter and liquid to thicken properly and lose its raw starchy taste. Stopping too early leaves a thin, pasty sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, white wine, marjoram, winter savory, clove, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, white wine, marjoram, winter savory, clove, butter, flour. 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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