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Turbot a LA Provencals

Sliced boiled turbot served in a sauce of truffles, shallots, carrot, stock, wine, mushrooms, spices, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Provencals

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the boiled turbot into slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the truffles, then wash and stew them with shallots and carrot in stock and white wine until done.

  2. Add the chopped mushrooms and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and allspice.

  3. Remove the carrot, then thicken the sauce with a mixture of flour and butter, and stir in chopped parsley.

  4. Once the sauce is smooth, add the fish to warm it up.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot, garnished with slices of bread.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

  5. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Truffles
Provide the dominant earthy aroma that defines the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by swelling in liquid as it heats, giving body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the flour-thickened sauce become smooth and glossy.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the rich sauce and fish.
Mushrooms
Contribute savoury depth and moisture to the sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like flavour that builds the sauce base.

The step that matters

Warm the fish in the sauce gently. Once the sauce is smooth, the fish only needs to warm through. Boiling or overheating can toughen the delicate, already-cooked flesh and cause it to break apart.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, truffle, shallot, carrot, white wine, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, truffle, shallot, carrot, white wine, mushroom, pepper. 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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