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Sole, Filleted, and Served with Mussels

A sole fillet served with mussels in a Madeira and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,083 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sole, Filleted, and Served with Mussels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Fillet the sole and divide the fillets in half.

  2. Rub the fillets with lemon.

  3. Let the fillets stand in a cool place for 1 hour.

Open the mussels

  1. Wash and brush the mussels.

  2. Place the mussels in a saucepan without any liquid.

  3. Add coarse sea salt, grated lemon rind, mace, allspice berries, bay leaf, and garlic (if using) to the mussels.

  4. Cover the pan with a clean cloth.

  5. Shake the pan over heat until the shells open.

  6. Remove the mussels from the pan.

  7. Beard the mussels.

  8. Strain the mussel liquor.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the filleted soles, Madeira, and strained liquor to the saucepan.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer gently until the soles are cooked, about 10 minutes.

  5. Add the mussels and remaining mussel liquor to the sauce.

  6. Simmer for 2 minutes.

  7. Transfer the soles to a dish.

  8. Place the mussels on top of the soles.

  9. Keep the dish warm.

  10. Let the sauce cool for 30 seconds.

  11. Stir in the beaten egg yolk and thick cream until smooth.

  12. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  13. Serve immediately.

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. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + garlictop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Allspice + garlictop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, cooking gently in the sauce until flaky.
Mussels
Add briny, savoury flavour and are cooked open in the pan before going into the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce into a smooth, silky texture when stirred in off the heat.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture alongside the egg yolk.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce as it reduces.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour as the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk and cream off the heat. Egg yolk thickens when heated, so if the sauce is too hot it can scramble or curdle. Letting it cool briefly first helps keep it smooth and silky.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, mace, allspice, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, mace, allspice, butter, egg, cream. 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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