In one and the same satire, Juvenal simultaneously made famous the emperor Domitian and turbot, for which the senate was convened. A large meeting of the Senate took place, but the issue turned out to be so important that the Fathers-legislators dispersed, not deciding under what sauce this monstrous animal should be served. In the absence of the decision of the Roman Senate, we are content with the decision of Vincent de la Chapelle, the venerable Father Legislator of French Cuisine. As far as we are familiar with ancient cooking, we should not be too sorry that in this case, as in many others, this venerable assembly somewhat blundered. Instead of the turbot of Domitian, which is very difficult to obtain, according to the description of Juvenal, take the best and most big fish turbot you can find.
It should be very thick, very white and very fresh. Cut it lengthwise down to the middle of the back, closer to the head than to the tail, and make a cut three or four inches long, depending on the size of the turbot. Raise the flesh on both sides, cut the ridge along the hole, remove three or four vertebrae. Secure the head with a knitting needle and string, which must be passed between the ridge and the first gill bone. Rub the turbot with lemon juice, place the flounder in a frying dish, which should be moistened with salt water (brine) and one or two pints of milk, add two or three lemon peels, cut into slices, removing the pulp and seeds. As soon as your seasoning begins to boil and "flinch", cover the fire and simmer the fish without letting it boil. Cover the top of the fish with greaseproof paper and leave in the sauce until serving. A quarter of an hour before serving, drain the liquid, put a napkin on the dish, spread the parsley roots on it so that the fish that you will put on the dish lies flat and its middle rises slightly. Lay the fish on a dish on top of the parsley. Using large scissors, cut off the fish's antennae and the end of the tail evenly. Put sprigs of parsley around the turbot, and if the fish broke in some places, then mask these places with parsley. Place a gravy boat with white caper sauce next to it, and another gravy boat with savory sauce or heavy gravy or fish broth or good hollandaise sauce.
The following words must be added to Vincent de la Chapelle's prescription: "With this turbot dish, serve hollandaise sauce, or sauce with oysters, or fatty tomato sauce, or white sauce with horseradish and spices, and best of all, compared with other sauces, serve with this fish lobster oil and finely chopped minced meat from this fish.
TURBOT IN ENGLISH. The English, who are naturally famous fish eaters, prepare a pre-planned sauce for each fish, with which this fish is always served. So, with turbot, the British usually eat lobster sauce or shrimp sauce. They serve boiled salmon with parsley sauce and often with cucumber salad. With cod they serve oyster sauce, which gourmets demand without fail. With whiting, the British serve egg sauce, and with boiled mackerel - parsley sauce or gooseberry sauce. With deep-fried fish (merlan, trout, smelt, small flounder), they serve anchovy oil.
Choose fresh turbot flounder, which should be white and thick. Gut it and cut off the fins that go around the body of the fish, cut it along the dark side of the body. The incision should be located close to the spine. After that, put the fish in a large bowl with cold water and soak in cold water for an hour. Drain the water, tie the head with twine, put the fish on the grill of a special dish in which flounders are fried, turning to the grill dark side body, sprinkle with salt and cover with cold water. Place the pot over high heat to bring the liquid to a boil. When the liquid boils once, move it to the edge of the stove and keep it there for 40–50 minutes at the same temperature, but without letting it boil. Boil one lobster in salt water at the same time, let it cool. Remove the meat from the tail, being careful not to ruin the shell. Cut the meat into slices, put in a small saucepan, cut the seasonings, cut also the meat from the lobster claws into square pieces and leave it all under the lid. Prepare butter sauce. When it's ready, add the small pieces of lobster and keep the sauce in a water bath. Immediately before serving, drain the liquid from the fish, untie the string and transfer the fish to a wide dish, the bottom of which is covered with an oval plank. Poke two holes and cover with a napkin on top. It almost goes without saying that the white side of the fish should be on top. Place the boiled lobster in the middle of the fish. On the lobster shell, put the meat from its tail, cut into slices, and pierce the entire shell with a metal stick, on which two crayfish and one truffle are put on. Surround the turbot with parsley leaves and serve the sauce separately.
KAGIORI FROM TURBO. This dish comes from India, nowadays it is served everywhere in England, and in this sense it may seem that England has become a colony of India. Separate the fillet from a small raw turbot fish, cut into large cubes, fry over high heat with butter for only two minutes, add salt, pepper and remove the pan from heat. Finely chop one onion, fry in butter, without browning, put 500 g of washed rice, from which the water has been carefully drained. Rice must be on the sieve for an hour. After a few seconds, pour in the fish stock until it is three times the height of the rice. Simmer over high heat for 10-12 minutes, then remove the pot from the heat and keep it close to the oven door until the rice is almost dry. After that, mix rice with turbot fillets, sprinkle with a pinch of cayenne pepper, pour a few tablespoons of sauce on top, and also add three finely chopped hard-boiled eggs and, finally, a piece of butter, cut into small slices. Put the rice immediately in a deep dish and pour over the butter, which was fried with hazelnuts.
TURBOT FLICE BAKED DANISH. Take a small turbot fish, which should be very fresh. You may take half a turbot if that half is large enough for the number of guests you have invited. Separate the flesh from the ridge and cut across to get long fillet pieces that are two to three centimeters thick. Put these fillet pieces in a ceramic dish, sprinkle with salt and spices, boil five or six hard-boiled eggs, cut each into four parts, sprinkle with salt and pepper, as well as parsley and keep in a covered saucepan. Sift through a sieve 400-500 g of coarsely salted semul groats so that no flour remains in it. Add two egg yolks one after the other, rubbing them with your palms. Put the resulting grits on an iron sheet and dry in a drying cabinet. Rub again with your hands, rubbing the resulting lumps, and boil in salt water to make it thick and dry. Finely chop two white onions, a handful of green parsley and 8-10 fresh mushrooms. Fry the onion in a saucepan with butter, without letting it change color, put the mushrooms in the same place. Fry until the liquid released from the mushrooms evaporates. Sprinkle with finely chopped herbs and add a spoonful of flour. Pour in half a glass of white wine, add one bay leaf and bring the sauce to a boil. When it boils, continue to cook for a few more minutes, then put finely chopped parsley and turbot fillets into the sauce. Cover the pot, let the sauce boil twice, then move it to the edge of the stove and keep it there for five minutes. Let the sauce cool down with the fish. Prepare puff pastry using 500 g of good flour and 250 g of butter or lard. Make puff pastry in six additions, let it settle. Separate one fourth, and roll out the rest of the dough with a rolling pin and lay out in a rectangular shape. The dough should be 30–35 cm wide and twice as long. Twist the dough, then lay it on a metal sheet, while unrolling. Moisten the dough, then put it in the middle thick layer boiled and chilled semul groats, also shaping a rectangle, but this rectangle should be smaller than dough. On top of this layer lay the fish fillets, alternating with herbs and hard-boiled eggs, and two dozen blanched oysters. Put the rest of the cooked cereal on top and on the sides of the fish, give the pie a convex regular shape, lift the dough from the edges and put it in the middle, pressing it against the filling and pinching it. Moisten the top of the pie. Roll out the dough that you had in stock, making a rectangle out of it. Lay it on top of your cake so that it almost completely covers. Brush the surface of this dough with beaten eggs, make a hole in the middle so that hot air and steam can escape.
Make slits on the surface of the dough with the tip of a knife. Put the dough in the oven on a slow fire, cover with paper on top, tie with twine and bake for an hour and a quarter. Meanwhile, blanch two dozen oysters in a glass of white wine. From the head and bones of the fish with the addition of wine and vegetables, prepare about one liter of broth. Using this broth and oyster liquid, make a simple white sauce, thicken with three egg yolks, and finish with butter, finely chopped parsley, and lemon juice. Put the oysters in the sauce and serve it on the table along with the rest of the dish.
FLUX-TURBOT BAKED IN CREAM. Boil half of the turbot in salted water. Drain the liquid in which it was boiled and remove the ribs from first to last, as well as the dark part of the skin. Divide the pulp into portions, which are cut in advance, and put them next to each other in a deep dish. Sprinkle with finely chopped cooked champignons, pour in a few tablespoons of a good bechamel sauce, which should be boiled down and contain all the necessary spices and seasonings. Put the resulting mass in a slide, pour sauce on top, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, pour with melted butter and place in the oven, where a strong fire burns so that the surface is browned for 10-12 minutes. After removing the dish from the oven, put it on another dish and do not forget to put it around mashed potatoes with eggs.
REGENCY TURBOT (an old recipe from the Palais Royal). Boil in a saucepan two or three livres of veal cut into slices with pieces of lard, salt, pepper, a bunch of parsley, herbs, a few onions with cloves stuck in them, and two bay leaves. Let the veal release its juice. When the mass begins to stick to the bottom of the pan, put fresh butter in the pan with a little flour. When you have a flour dressing, pour in the broth and separate from the bottom of the pan with a spoon. Put slices of lard on the turbot and boil, pouring a bottle of champagne or other wine into the pan, as well as veal juice, and put the veal on top.
When everything is cooked, simmer for some time on hot ashes and coals, put on a dish, put crayfish stew on top, and add crayfish sauce to thicken.
MATLOT FROM TURBOT IN NORMAND. Cut a young turbot along the back, separate the bones, put a good raw butter sauce with parsley between the meat and the backbone, finely chop two large onions. Take a silver dish the size of your flounder, put onion on top and a large piece of butter sprinkled with salt, coarse pepper, thyme, crushed bay leaves, finely chopped parsley and add a little grated nutmeg. Put the fish on top of the onion, sprinkle it with salt, add a lemon and a little melted butter. Pour in a bottle of good foamy cider, place your dish on a small brazier, and on top of the brazier place a portable stove that will burn a very low fire. Drizzle with juice while frying.
FLUX TURBO BAKED WITH PARMESAN. Boil turbot in spiced broth. Cool, remove skin and remove bones. Put the meat in a bowl with lean bechamel sauce. Heat up without letting it boil. Put on a dish that can be put on the fire, sprinkle with breadcrumbs mixed with grated parmesan, pour with melted butter. Put on a low fire and let it bake, placing a portable stove on top.
YOUNG TURBOT ON A DISH. Gut and wash one, two or three young turbot flounders, drain the liquid from them, cut along the back, put butter on the bottom of the dish, sprinkle with a little salt and finely chopped spicy greens. Put the turbot on a dish, bread them with breadcrumbs and finely chopped herbs, add a little salt and spices, pour lightly with melted butter. Pour enough white wine down and place on the stove, then place under a portable oven or in a large oven if you have the option. Make sure the fish is ready by tasting it with your finger: if the turbot is well fried, it will feel soft to the touch. Serve with the liquid in which it was stewed, or drain this liquid and serve the turbot on the table with Italian sauce.
MAYONNAISE OR TURBO SALAD. Separate the fillet of one fish, clean and cut into pieces. Put in a bowl, add salt, coarse pepper, finely chopped vegetables, as for ravigote sauce, vegetable oil and tarragon vinegar. Arrange the fillets in a ring on a platter, make a garland of hard-boiled eggs around, garnish with anchovy fillets, gherkins, tarragon brushes, truffles, beets and capers. Arrange beautiful pieces of jelly around the dish, and put mayonnaise sauce or, even better, green sauce in the middle.
TURBOT FILLET IN BIGARADE SAUCE. Remove the fillets from one young turbot flounder, cut them into thin slices and stew them in lemon juice with salt, pepper and a little garlic. Before serving, place on a clean paper towel to absorb the liquid, sprinkle with flour and deep-fry until a nice color. Put on a dish and serve with sauce, which is prepared on fish sauce with the addition of orange juice.
It became cold, and in the mornings I didn’t feel like getting out from under the covers, especially to work. It would be nice to hide from everyone and lie down "on the bottom" ... This is worth learning from the most phlegmatic representative of fish - flounder. Niko Givanoli, the new chef of the Baltschug Kempinski Moscow hotel, talks about how to cook turbot.
What is a flounder?
There are a lot of species of this fish, there are four of them in the Black Sea alone, but we will talk about the most delicious of them - the diamond-shaped turbot flounder, which lives in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. To be honest, this is not only the most delicate in taste and very expensive fish, but also one of the most terrible. The entire flounder family is characterized by body asymmetry: the side facing down is painted white, and the upper side is dark, the eyes are shifted to one upper side, which is why this fish looks so unattractive. The diamond-shaped flounder has such a stone-gray upper side and with pimples, which is probably why the Germans called it stone fish. By the way, in very young fish, the asymmetry is not always pronounced, it’s somehow more pleasant to look at them, but they have very little meat, so I often have to deal with dense adult fish weighing up to five kilograms, they have better taste. One of the disadvantages of diamond-shaped flounder is that sixty percent of all fish is skin and bones, and only the remaining forty percent is fillet.
Is this fish hard to catch?
Yes, that's partly why it's considered expensive. Her appearance adapted to the seabed, it seems to spread along it, so they catch it by “combing” the bottom with a net weighted with weights. Now, of course, they began to grow flounder in special pools: this way it is available all year round and is easier to catch. True, at wild fish the meat is white, light, and artificially grown ones are lazy, which is why they are too fatty.
Is it possible to buy "turbo" in Moscow?
There are several reliable suppliers here, so fresh flounder is not uncommon in any fish boutique. Here it is usually shipped from France. When choosing a fish, you need to pay attention to a number of signs that are characteristic of all fresh fish: these are transparent and clear eyes, elastic flesh, red gills. And yet, if the fish smells like the sea, it is good, and if you feel the smell of fish, frankly, it is better to pass by.
How to cut flounder before cooking?
From this fish, we only need a fillet, and, unlike ordinary fish, the flat ones, to which ours belongs, have four fillet parts, not two. We remove the pimply gray skin, remove the head and tail with fins, and then separate the two fillet parts in front and two behind. You can leave the bones, but cook whole, it depends on the size of the fish and how you are going to cook it.
Should there be a special approach to such a delicious fish?
Yes, there should be such an approach to any fish, for example, if you want to fry it, then remember that at a temperature of seventy-two degrees all its useful protein will curl up, so you need to fry in warm, but not boiling oil. If you fry our flounder in such a careful way, it will not only retain its useful properties, but will not lose its taste, it will be very juicy. You can also fry it in a pan very quickly on both sides, and then "finish" it in the oven. Whole large fish with bones can be grilled or baked in foil.
Can you eat raw?
Anything is possible, but I haven't tried it. In any case, I believe that warm-water fish are more suitable for a raw food diet, while ours lives in cold waters.
First of all, I advise you to buy a fillet right away, and not the whole fish, so as not to suffer with butchering, and not to spoil your appetite with its appearance. Quickly, as I said, fry the fillet on both sides in oil, then put it on a baking sheet, put a sprig of rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, chopped garlic on top, sprinkle with lemon juice, and if you wish, you can put a little butter on top - for a special tenderness. We put the fish with spices in an oven preheated to 175 degrees and bake for only five minutes - the dish is ready. I really like to bake flounder in foil. We spread vegetables on a large sheet: carrots, celery, leeks, put fillets on vegetables, and spices on top: thyme, rosemary, unground garlic, salt and pepper. After we sprinkle all this with a small amount of wine, put the butter - here it is already necessary. It is important to wrap the foil very well so that nothing falls out or leaks. Now bake it all in the oven at 180 degrees for twenty minutes. As a result, we get a fish soaked in spices, vegetable juice and wine, a side dish in the form of very tender vegetables and a sauce formed by combining the juice from the main ingredients with wine and oil.
And if you just fry the fish in oil, what side dish is best then?
When choosing a side dish, you need to keep in mind that this fish is very noble, its taste is delicate and delicate, so you need to combine it with appropriate products, that is, a rough side dish in the form of beans will not work, but asparagus with sun-dried tomatoes will only favorably emphasize the taste of diamond-shaped flounder. Any risotto would be great too. I recommend drinking dishes from this fish with traditional white Bordeaux, this combination fully reveals the taste of fish. For those who still prefer red or rosé wine, I advise you to choose the lightest varieties, but you still need to cook flounder exclusively with white.
Interviewed by Anna Karmanova
| Systematics on Wikispecies | Images at Wikimedia Commons |
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Turbot was first described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the classic monograph Systema naturae under the Latin binomen Pleuronectes maximus. In 1810, the American naturalist, zoologist and botanist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (eng. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque 1783-1840) identified the genus Scophthalmus in which the turbot was placed. For a century and a half it was classified under various Latin names. From the mid-1990s to the early 2010s, disputes continued among taxonomists about the genus of turbot. A number of authors attributed this species to the genus Scophthalmus, while others placed it in the genus Rhombus(family Bothidae) or into a monotypic genus Psetta. A detailed analysis of all available sources on this issue is given in the work of Nicolas Bailly and Bruno Chanet in 2010. The authors made a conclusion about the validity of the generic name Scophthalmus. And now, in almost all authoritative sources, only this generic name is used.
So far, taxonomists have not come to a consensus on the taxonomic status of turbot and Black Sea Kalkan. Some authors consider them different types. The main differences are in the size and location of the tubercles on the body of the fish. It is believed that in turbot tubercles are always significantly smaller than the diameter of the eye and are located only on the ocular side of the body, while in the Black Sea turbot the tubercles are larger than the diameter of the eye and are developed both on the ophthalmic and blind sides. However, it has been shown that fish from Sea of Azov only the ocular side is covered with bony tubercles. In the Baltic Sea, there are individuals with both large and small tubercles located on both sides of the body. The described differences in the number of rays in the dorsal and anal fins are unreliable. The conducted genetic studies also showed no species differences between the turbot and the Black Sea Kalkan. In this way, Scophthalmus maeoticus should be considered as a subspecies Scophthalmus maximus maeoticus .
Nevertheless, both taxonomic variants are found in the domestic literature. .
The maximum body length is 100 cm, usually 40-70 cm, body weight up to 25 kg.
The color of the eye side of the body varies greatly depending on the color of the surrounding substrate, but in general from light gray or yellowish to dark gray or dark brown with numerous dark and light round dots. The blind side is usually whitish, sometimes with scattered, blurry dark spots. The fins are dark brown, dotted with light dots and spots.
Marine bottom fish. They live on a sandy, shell or pebble bottom at a depth of 2 to 80 meters. Juveniles under the age of one year stay near the shores in desalinated areas of bays and coves. Adult individuals withstand significant fluctuations in water salinity; in the Baltic Sea they are found at salinities up to 2‰.
Turbot males reach sexual maturity at the age of 3 years, and females at the age of 4-5 years. In the Mediterranean Sea they spawn from February to April; in the North and Baltic Seas from April to August, in the more southern regions of the Atlantic in May - July. Spawning is portioned, separate portions of caviar are spawned every 2-4 days. Spawning is observed at a depth of 10-80 m above pebble soils. The fecundity of turbot females varies from 5 to 10 million eggs. Caviar is pelagic, spherical in shape with one fat drop, 0.9-1.2 mm in diameter. The duration of embryonic development depends on the water temperature and is 7-9 days. At hatching, the length of the larvae varies from 2.2 to 2.8 mm.
The larvae have a symmetrical body, they lead a planktonic lifestyle for several months. Upon reaching a length of 25-27 mm, metamorphosis is completed, the eye moves to the left side of the body, and the juveniles pass to the bottom way of life.
Turbot grows quite slowly. In the Baltic Sea, by the end of the first year of life, females and males reach a length of 20 cm. Subsequently, females grow faster than males. At the age of 3 years, the body length of females reaches 36 cm, and males 31.5 cm.
The maximum life expectancy according to different authors ranges from 15 years to 25 years.
Juveniles feed on invertebrates (calanuses, euphausids, balanus larvae and gastropods). Adult individuals switch to eating fish (gerbil, European sprat, horse mackerel, whiting, Esmark cod, juvenile haddock, flounder; sea bream and others). Sometimes mollusks and polychaetes are found in stomachs.
Distributed in the eastern part of the Atlantic Ocean from Norway (the range goes beyond the Arctic Circle); in the North Sea, in most of the Baltic Sea; along the western coast of Europe, including the British Isles, and south to Bujdour (Western Sahara); in the Mediterranean. Rare off the coast of Iceland. It is absent off the coast of Greenland and North America. If we consider the Black Sea Kalkan as a subspecies of turbot, then the range expands to the Black and Azov Seas.
Commercial cultivation of turbot began in the 1970s in Scotland. Then it appeared in Spain and France. Initially, the cultivation volumes were small due to the lack of planting material. In the early 1990s, artificial breeding biotechniques were developed and methods for producing viable turbot juveniles were improved. In Spain, at that time, there were already 16 production farms. In 2000, turbot aquaculture production reached 5,000 tons. More and more countries began to engage in commercial cultivation of turbot. And since 2004, aquaculture production has exceeded wild catches. Spain remains the largest producer of commercial products of turbot. Portugal, France, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Great Britain achieved significant success in the commercial cultivation of turbot. Turbot has been introduced to Chile and China.
Turbot meat has excellent palatability. Sold fresh and frozen.
Mentioned as a dish in the novel Anna Karenina and the story The Story of a City, in the novel Arc de Triomphe, as well as in The Count of Monte Cristo (part two, ch. X) and Flaubert's novel The Education of the Senses.
Sometimes you really want to cook fish - but you don’t know how best to do with it. In today's recipes with salmon, sea bass and turbot, which is still little known to us, they do it very simply - they fry or bake. But vegetables and sauce for fish dishes are prepared especially carefully.
Sea bass fillet(180 g) salt and pepper to taste. Grease the fillet olive oil, put skin side down in a slightly heated frying pan. Fry over medium heat for 7-8 minutes without turning the fish. Then remove the fillet from the pan, turn it over with the skin up, put it on parchment and place in the oven for 2 minutes at 180 degrees.
Garnish. Bake fresh yellow bell pepper in the oven for 7-10 minutes at 180 degrees. Remove skin and seeds, cut into strips.
Fennel 1 pc. cut in half, salt, pepper, add garlic oil, lemon juice, thyme, sugar to taste. Wrap the fennel in foil and bake in the oven for 7-10 minutes at 180 degrees.
Peel the asparagus from the skin, scald until half cooked in boiling water, cool in ice. Cut the asparagus lengthwise and in half.
Zucchini (30 g) cut into half rings not thinly, red onion (10 g) cut into rings. Pour 25 g of olive oil into a saucepan, add a pinch of sugar, put zucchini and red onion and simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Then add the prepared asparagus (1 pc.), Ready baked fennel (30 g), Ready baked bell pepper (30 g), salt to taste. Add lemon juice. Simmer for 1 more minute, stirring constantly, then remove from heat.
Serving. Put the garnish in the center of the plate, on top - sea bass fillet skin side up. Garnish with fresh basil and pink peppercorns.
Sauce. Grate half a red apple, chop half an onion and 1 garlic clove. Add soy sauce (100 g), sugar to taste, lemon juice (20 g), orange juice (20 g). Mix all ingredients, add 20 g sake (or white wine), 20 g gelding sauce, 10 g rice vinegar and incubated for 3 hours at room temperature. Strain the sauce.
Garnish. Fennel (1 pc.) Peel, add salt and pepper to taste, fry in a pan in vegetable oil until tender. Peel asparagus (2 pcs.), Boil until tender.
Salmon fillets(120 g) fry in vegetable oil. Add the sauce, prepared vegetables, slightly evaporate the sauce and add 10 g of butter. (Thus we tighten the sauce.)
Serving. We spread 2 slices of fennel, put 2 asparagus on it and on top - salmon fillet. Garnish with lemon and green onions.
For filling onion (1 pc.), bell pepper (1/2 pc.), eggplant (40 g) and zucchini (3-4 cups), finely chop and fry in olive oil (2.5 tbsp. l.). Add crushed tomatoes (100 g in their own juice), capers (1 tsp) and sliced grapes (30 g) and olives with black olives (100 g, pitted). Pour in the prepared fish broth (70 g), salt, pepper, mix well and simmer for several minutes.
For sauce mix 1.5 tbsp. l. dry white wine, 1.5 tbsp. l. lemon juice and 1.5 tbsp. l. cream. Mix well with minced garlic (2 cloves), finely chopped dill (1 tablespoon) and thyme (1 teaspoon).
Prepare fish - turbot (600 g): cut fins and bones from the carcass. Connect vegetable mix with sauce and stuff the fish. Salt (1 teaspoon sea salt), pepper (1 teaspoon white pepper), drizzle with lemon and bake at 200°C for 15 minutes.
Turbot is a valuable fish, distinguished by a peculiar fresh taste and aroma. The Black Sea turbot has a distinct taste of iodine and mud. And the fresh Atlantic and Mediterranean smells like a freshly cut cucumber. When choosing a turbot, you need to pay attention to the fact that the eyes are bulging, with an internal glow, and the gills are light red. Also, fresh fish should be elastic and have a slight iodine marine smell.
Garnish should be neutral. Stewed spinach, baked tomatoes, asparagus, grilled vegetables, boiled potatoes, leafy salads can play this role. Heavy sauces are also not needed - they should be light, almost transparent. The best sauces for turbot are dry white wine sauces.
During cooking, it is better not to cut the fish and cook it whole, so it retains all its taste.
No complete diet, even a dietary one, can do without fish. Great love due to more tender and fatty meat and a small number of bones is deservedly used by marine and ocean specimens. They also include a representative of the flounder-like family - turbot, also called a large rhombus and a sea pheasant. Even a novice hostess will be able to master a tasty and juicy dish from it, and the variety of recipes allows everyone to choose the most acceptable option.
Although the taste of a turbot is almost impossible to spoil, experienced chefs advise you to follow a few simple recommendations:
Any heat treatment is great for working with turbot - steaming and boiling, frying in a pan, grilling and in the oven.
To prepare four servings of this dish you will need:
Stuff the prepared fish with olives and whole unpeeled cloves of one garlic head.
For a turbot laid out on a baking sheet, make two semicircular cuts on top from the head to the tail and two straight cuts in the center. Add pepper and salt, not forgetting that the meat of marine specimens is already characterized by a salty taste, therefore, there is no need to be zealous. Pour the carcass with wine, and then with olive oil. Place tomatoes with garlic cloves around and send the dish to the oven. Bake for at least half an hour at 200 ° C.
This simple recipe allows you to easily and quickly prepare a fish dish with a full side dish. A set of required products:
Salt the fish a little and sprinkle generously with the Provence mixture, including the inner abdominal region. For a quarter of an hour, you need to insist vegetable oil on a mix of Provence herbs, adding salt and pepper. Sprinkle the peeled potatoes with the resulting marinade, cut into slices, and spread it with a “pillow” on a baking sheet. Place the turbot on top. Heat the oven to 220 ° C and cook for an hour.
To make onion sauce, you need to sauté medium-sized chopped onions, flavoring them with a spoonful of sugar and melted butter. Having received an onion golden color, it is necessary to pour in alcohol and simmer the mass for another five to seven minutes. Add fish broth and cream cheese with salt.
Wait until the final melting of the cheese mixture, then remove the pan from the stove, cool the contents for a couple of minutes and transfer it to a blender. Pour in the cream and whisk. If you wish, you can not achieve a completely homogeneous consistency, but leave pieces of fried onion for piquancy. Return the whipped mix to the stove again, pepper and, after making a minimum heat, heat to a boil.
Serve the fish whole or cut into portions. Do not forget to pour plenty of sauce on top.
Who, no matter how the inhabitants of the Mediterranean, know best how to cook the most delicate dish from marine life. Spaniards love to serve turbot with spicy tomato sauce.
To do this, take half a kilogram of fish fillet and fill it in a frying pan with fish broth by at least a third. Pour the grated zest of one citrus, reduce the heat to a minimum and boil for a quarter of an hour. Remove the fish and strain the broth.
Cut two hundred grams of onion into small cubes and sauté until golden brown in vegetable oil. Pour half a kilo of tomatoes with boiling water, and then with cold water, quickly remove the skin and chop finely. Pour the tomatoes to the onion, adding:
Reduce the heat on low heat to a thick puree.
Pour one hundred milliliters of fish broth into it and simmer until a homogeneous mixture is formed. Pour the steaming sauce over the turbot and, after closing the lid, let it brew for at least forty minutes. Serve, garnish with lemon and fresh herbs.
Regardless of the variant of the chosen recipe, this tender and juicy fish will firmly enter your diet, decorating both the weekday and the most solemn table with dignity.
