Skip to main content
Main

Turbot a LA Cream

Baked turbot topped with a thyme and parsley cream sauce and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turbot a LA Cream

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

  1. Boil a large whitefish and remove the bones, flaking the fish into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, thyme, and parsley; simmer until well flavored.

  2. Wet the flour and stir it into the hot milk along with the butter; stir until thickened.

  3. Season the sauce with pepper and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and sauce until full, finishing with sauce on top.

  2. Cover with cracker crumbs and bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned and heated through.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the flavor of the herbs.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, coating sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, giving it a smooth texture.
Whitefish (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish, flaked and layered with the sauce.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be wet before it goes into the hot milk so it disperses without lumps. Stirring until thickened lets the starch swell and gelatinize, giving the sauce body.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, parsley, flour, butter, pepper):

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, parsley, flour, butter, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes