Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Turbot Au Gratin
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the fish
Remove bones and black skin from the turbot and cut it into small pieces.
In a stewpan, combine the fish with enough white sauce to cover it and season with salt and pepper.
Heat the mixture thoroughly without boiling.
Bake and serve
Transfer the fish and sauce to a gratin dish, cover with breadcrumbs, and dot with small pieces of butter.
Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or under a salamander.
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.
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Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together248 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Turbot + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together372 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,303 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold turbot
- Provides the flaked fish that forms the body of the dish.
- Béchamel or white sauce
- Binds the fish and adds moisture and a creamy texture.
- Breadcrumbs
- Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven or under the grill.
- Butter
- Adds fat that helps the topping brown and gives richness.
The step that matters
Heat the mixture thoroughly without boiling. Boiling a white sauce can cause it to break or become grainy, and gentle heating keeps the fish tender and the sauce smooth.
“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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