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Sole a LA Portugaise

A sole fillet stuffed with breadcrumbs, cheese, anchovy essence, and butter, topped with tomatoes, onions, and browned crumbs, baked and garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Mix bread crumbs, anchovy essence, grated cheese, melted butter, chopped onion, and seasoning for the stuffing.

  2. Skin the sole and carefully lift the fillets to remove them.

  3. Wash and dry the fish.

  4. Stuff the raised fillets with the prepared stuffing.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the fish in a buttered serving dish.

  2. Cut the tomatoes thickly.

  3. Layer the tomatoes over the fish along with the sliced onions.

  4. Sprinkle browned crumbs on top of the fish.

  5. Place the dish in a roasting pan filled with water.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  7. Garnish with parsley 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

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

  2. Bread + cheesetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,130 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,955 recipes

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

  4. Bread + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Tomato + breadtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently until flaky and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and seasonings in the stuffing and give it body.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that flavour the fish as it bakes.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften under the fish.
Browned crumbs
Form a golden, crisp topping through browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Stuffing the raised fillets. Fillets must be lifted carefully so they stay intact around the stuffing; tearing them lets the filling escape and leaves the fish uneven when baked.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, tomato, bread, anchovy, cheese, butter):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, bread, anchovy, cheese, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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