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Fried Soles, with Shrimp Sauce

Fried soles coated in flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs, served with a shrimp sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Soles, with Shrimp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the brown skin and head from the soles, and trim the fins with scissors.

  2. Wash and dry the soles, then roll them in flour.

  3. Dip the floured soles into the beaten eggs, then coat with bread crumbs.

  4. Place the prepared soles on a dish in a cool place until ready to fry.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan and fry the soles until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fried soles on a napkin and serve with fried parsley and shrimp sauce.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Shrimp + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Soles
The main fish, whose mild flesh is the centerpiece of the dish.
Flour
Creates a dry base that helps the egg and crumb coating adhere to the fish.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays on during frying.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried in oil.

The step that matters

Drying the soles before flouring. Moisture on the fish keeps the flour from sticking and can steam the surface, so the coating may slip off or fry unevenly. Patting the soles dry first helps the crumb coating stay intact and crisp.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, bread, shrimp, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, bread, shrimp, sauce. 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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