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Fish Turbot

A baked turbot dish layered with a thickened milk, butter, mashed potato, and flour mixture, topped with cracker crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Scald the milk, butter, mashed potatoes, and flour in a saucepan until thickened.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the fish and the thickened mixture alternately until the dish is filled.

  2. Season each layer with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Cover the top with cracker crumbs and dot with butter.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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 thickened sauce that moistens the fish.
Flour
Thickens the scalded milk mixture into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the top brown.
Mashed potatoes
Adds body and starch to the sauce, helping it hold together and stay moist.
Eggs
Not used in any step of the method, so no role is stated.

The step that matters

Scalding and thickening the sauce. Milk scorches easily on the bottom of a saucepan, and flour must be heated fully to thicken properly. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and prevents lumps.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, egg, whitefish, 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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