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Turbot Boiled

A boiled turbot served with lemon, sea salt, and various sauces, garnished with lobster coral, parsley, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wipe the turbot thoroughly and trim the fins without cutting them off.

  2. Make an incision down the middle of the back to prevent the skin from cracking.

  3. Rub the white side of the fish with a cut lemon to retain its whiteness.

Poach the fish

  1. In a turbot kettle, add enough warm water to cover the fish and season with salt.

  2. Bring the water to near boiling, then simmer the fish gently for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the fish and place it neatly on a serving dish.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with lobster coral, parsley, and cut lemon.

  2. Serve with Hollandaise, anchovy, shrimp, or lobster 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 + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Turbot + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together110 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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 whole in gently simmering water so its flesh turns firm and flaky.
Lemon
Its juice rubbed on the white skin helps keep the flesh looking white during cooking.
Hollandaise sauce
Rich, buttery sauce that adds fat and a tangy lemon note to the mild fish.

The step that matters

Simmering gently. If the water boils hard, the outside of the fish overcooks and the skin can crack, so it should stay just below a boil.

“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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