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Turbot has a firm and delicious white flesh. It is delicious poached whole and served with a hollandaise sauce. Expensive but one of the best fishes. Caught in European waters only, from the Mediterranean to Iceland and Norway (none in America).
As a simple rule you should buy an untrimmed and ungutted fish of twice the weight of the final portions. A good serving is 180g, so for five persons you should buy a turbot weighting approximately 1.4kg. The photographed turbot had a gross weight of 1.73kg, a prepared weight of 1.47kg and the portions served had a total weight of 850g and would have been perfect for five guests. Price: £26/kg on 27/02/10.
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| Buy a turbot |
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| Left-sided: eyes on the right side |
The turbot is a flatfish with both eyes on the left side on the head. It is portrayed swimming from right to left.
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| Turbot ready to be poached in the oven |
Put turbot in a pan with the dark skin underneath. Add 0.5l of court-bouillon made with vegetable stock cube. Add some tasty vegetables - like fennel – if available. Put in 220ºC oven. The court-bouillon should not boil. The fish is ready when the meat can be separated from the bone.
For the photographed turbot it took one hour to be ready. The meat temperature was 62ºC in the thickest part which the right temperature for the albumines (proteins) to be cooked.
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| Ingrdients for the sauce |
For 170g of butter, use two yolks and the juice of half a lemon.
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| A spoonful of water and two yolks |
Put the two yolks in a saucepan with a heavy bottom ans add half a spoonful of cold water. Warm up slowly, add slivers of butter at room temperature and keep mixing. Add the lemon juice. The temperature of the bottom of the pan should be such than you can touch it with your fingers with no pain. The temperature of the liquid should be no more than that of a warm bath. Do not exceed those temperatures. When the sauce is "cooked", it will be quite viscous and the spatula will leave a mark at the bottom of the pan (photo).
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| Presentation (with cheek in the plate) |
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| Presentation |
When the turbot is cooked, leave it in the pan, take off the white skin and present the fillets on a plate, either sauced or with the hollandaise around the fillets.
Brill: the turbot can only be confused with a brill which has a relatively similar rhomboid shape. The way to recognize them is that the turbot has no scales but bony tubercles on its body. Brill has scales and lack tubercles. The brill is inferior to the turbot but still a very good fish. Like the turbot, the brill does not occur in North America.
Special treat, birthday, anniversary, etc. For a very special treat for two you could cook 430g of proteins per person by cooking the photographed 1.7kg turbot. This is equivalent to a 15' steak. Enjoy!
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