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Turbot

A boiled turbot seasoned with lemon, salt, and parsley, served with lobster or Dutch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the turbot dry and rub it with lemon juice and a little salt.

  2. Place it in a fish kettle and cover with water, adding a handful of salt.

Poach and serve

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

  2. Skim the water, carefully lift the turbot onto a drainer, and slide it onto a dish covered with a folded napkin.

  3. Garnish with picked parsley and serve with lobster sauce or Dutch 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Parsley + lobstertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. 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 fish, cooked gently in simmering water so its flesh stays moist and tender.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that lifts the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmering rather than boiling. Once the water reaches a boil, the heat should be reduced to a gentle simmer. A hard boil agitates the flesh and can toughen and break up the delicate fish, so keeping the water barely moving helps it cook evenly and stay intact.

“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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