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Turbot, Baked

A baked turbot seasoned with butter, spices, and parsley, served with a sauce made from the cooking liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turbot, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean, wash, and dry the turbot.

  2. Rub the baking dish with butter and sprinkle with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and parsley.

  3. Place the turbot in the dish and season the top with more seasoning.

Bake

  1. Dot the fish with small pieces of butter, dredge with flour, and add wine and oyster broth.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20-30 minutes, depending on size.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Pour the baking dish liquid into a saucepan, thicken with flour and butter, and stir over heat for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Serve the sauce in a tureen and garnish the turbot with horseradish, lemon, fried bread, or 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turbot
Is the main fish, whose firm white flesh holds its shape and flakes when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the fish and sauce carry flavour.
Flour
Dredged over the fish and used to thicken the pan liquid into a sauce.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce.
Oyster broth
Adds savoury, briny depth to the cooking liquid and sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish and sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour needs to be cooked briefly in the hot liquid so it swells and thickens smoothly without tasting raw or forming lumps. Stirring constantly over heat keeps the sauce even.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour, wine, oyster):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, butter, pepper, nutmeg, flour, wine, oyster. 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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