Skip to main content
Main

Baked Soles

Baked soles are fish coated with butter, bread crumbs, salt, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Baked Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin and clean the soles in the usual way.

  2. Dry the fish and let it rest for an hour or more, folded in a clean cloth.

Coat the fish

  1. Mix a slightly beaten egg with about an ounce of butter, just liquefied.

  2. Brush the fish with this mixture on all sides.

  3. Cover the fish with very fine dry bread crumbs seasoned with a little salt, cayenne, mace, and nutmeg.

  4. For better encrustation, dip or sprinkle the fish with bread crumbs a second time after the first coating is moistened with butter.

  5. Press the bread crumbs lightly onto the fish with a broad-bladed knife.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour a teaspoonful or two of liquid butter into a flat dish that will contain the fish.

  2. Lay the fish in the dish.

  3. Sprinkle a little more butter over the fish.

  4. If baking two or more soles, place them separately, flat, in a large dish or each on its own dish.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes.

  6. When ready to serve, gently glide the fish onto the serving dish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

120Calories
0 gProtein
13 gFat
2 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

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

By Eliza Acton. 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.

  1. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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

Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that encloses the fish and keeps it moist.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture and helps the crumbs brown during baking.
Egg (in the method)
Binds the butter to the fish so the bread crumbs adhere evenly.

The step that matters

Press the bread crumbs lightly onto the fish. Crumbs need a moist, buttered base to stick; if they are left loose they fall off in the oven, leaving patchy coverage and an uneven crust.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, nutmeg. 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.

More baked sole recipes

Fillets 6with Breadcrumbs 3 See all 41 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes