Name: Filleted Soles a L'italienne
Ingredients: 2 soles; 1 lemon; two pieces; 6 persons; salt; pepper; nutmeg

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Filleted Soles a L'italienne

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

Skin and carefully wash the soles, separate the meat from the bone, and divide each fillet into two pieces.
Brush the fillets with egg white, sprinkle with bread crumbs and seasoning, and place them in a baking dish.

Bake and serve

Place small pieces of butter over the fillets and bake for 1/2 hour.
When nearly done, squeeze lemon juice over them and serve on a dish with Italian sauce poured over.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

30Calories

1 gProtein

1 gFat

6 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 4 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Soles: Provide the delicate white fish meat that forms the main dish.
Egg white (in the method): Binds the bread crumbs to the fish so they stay on during baking.
Bread crumbs (in the method): Form a light coating that helps the fillets brown in the oven.
Butter (in the method): Adds fat and moisture, keeping the fish from drying out while it bakes.
Lemon: Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice near the end. Lemon juice added when nearly done brightens the fish without over-acidifying it. Adding it too early can toughen proteins and lose its fresh flavour during long baking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, pepper):

Parsleyfits better
Marjoramfits better
Thymefits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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Filleted Soles a L'italienne