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Turbot with Macaroni in a Gratin

A baked dish of flaked turbot mixed with cream sauce and macaroni, topped with breadcrumbs and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 with Macaroni in a Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the picked turbot in hot water to separate it into flakes.

  2. Combine the turbot with the cream sauce and cooked macaroni, ensuring no water remains.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Drizzle with clarified butter and add another layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Brown gently under a broiler until golden, then serve.

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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Turbot + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 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
Provides the flaked fish that forms the main body of the gratin.
Cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness so the mixture stays creamy rather than dry.
Cooked macaroni
Gives the gratin bulk and a starchy, tender texture that holds the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when browned under the broiler.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the crumbs brown evenly and gives a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Ensuring no water remains. Excess water from the soaked turbot would thin the cream sauce and make the gratin soggy, so the flakes should be well drained before combining.

“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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