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Turbot, Boiled

A whole turbot boiled with lemon, salt, and pepper, served with lobster coral, parsley, and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Clean and wash the fish, trimming the fins but leaving them intact.

  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.

Poach and serve

  1. Fill a turbot kettle with enough hot water to cover the fish and add salt to taste.

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

  3. Garnish with lobster coral, parsley, and cut lemon before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Turbot + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together264 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 main body of the dish; its firm white flesh flakes when gently cooked.
Lemon
Adds acidity and a bright aroma that complements the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil. Water held just below a rolling boil cooks the fish evenly and keeps the flesh tender. A hard boil toughens the proteins, causes the skin to split and breaks the fish apart.

“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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