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Sole, Curried

Sole fillets are lightly coated with curry powder, fried, then simmered in a curry sauce made from onions, sour apple, curry paste, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sole, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Fillet the soles, then cut each fillet into 4 or 5 pieces.

  2. Skin and clean the fish, cutting each fish into 3 or 4 pieces with bones in.

  3. Rub the fish with curry powder and dredge it with a little flour.

  4. Fry the fish in hot fat for 2–3 minutes, but do not cook fully.

Make the sauce

  1. Mince the onions and sour apple.

  2. Fry the mixture in hot fat until soft.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Mix the sifted mixture with the pulp, curry paste, curry powder, and ground rice.

  5. Gradually add the stock.

  6. Boil until the sauce is thick and smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Prepare warm curry sauce to cover the fish.

  2. Carefully lay the fried fish in the sauce.

  3. Let it simmer gently for about 10 minutes until done.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the sauce until flaky.
Onions
Softened by frying, they add sweetness and body to the sauce base.
Sour apple
Adds acidity and body, balancing the richness of the curry sauce.
Ground rice
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it a smooth, stable body.
Flour
Light dusting helps the fish brown in the hot fat and keeps its surface set.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the curry flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the fish only briefly before simmering. Frying for just 2–3 minutes sets the coating and surface while the flesh stays tender. Cooking it fully at this point would leave it dry and firm before it finishes gently in the sauce.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, onion, rice):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, onion, rice. 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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