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Turbot a LA Sauce Blanche

A turbot fillet cooked with herbs, leeks, anchovies, capers, and a white wine and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Sauce Blanche

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and poach the turbot

  1. Wash and dry the turbot.

  2. In a stewpan, add thyme, parsley, fine herbs, and sliced onion.

  3. Place the fish on top and sprinkle with herbs, leeks, and basil.

  4. Pour in equal parts white wine and vinegar to cover the fish.

  5. Sprinkle with grey salt and coarse pepper.

  6. Cook the turbot over moderate heat until done, then remove from heat but leave in the saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. In another saucepan, melt butter and add anchovies, capers, leeks, pepper, salt, nutmeg, flour, vinegar, and water.

  2. Cook these ingredients over heat, then warm the fish again.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish with sauce poured over it and horseradish on the side.

  2. Serve remaining sauce in a separate dish.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Forms the main dish; its delicate white flesh becomes flaky and tender when gently poached.
Butter
Melts into the sauce to make it rich, smooth and silky.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid so the sauce clings to the fish.
Anchovies
Add savory depth and salty richness to the sauce.
Capers
Add sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Leeks
Add mild sweetness and soft texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the turbot over moderate heat until done. Moderate heat keeps the delicate fish moist and flaky; overcooking squeezes out moisture and leaves the flesh dry and tough. Leaving it in the hot liquid off the heat lets it finish gently and stay tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, thyme, parsley, white wine, vinegar, pepper, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, thyme, parsley, white wine, vinegar, pepper, butter. 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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