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Sole, Fillets Of, Vol-au-vent of

Sole fillets served in a vol-au-vent crust with a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sole, Fillets Of, Vol-au-vent of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the soles and cut them into round pieces the size of a half crown.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, heat the cream sauce or béchamel mixed with butter, salt, and pepper without boiling.

  2. Add the sole pieces to the sauce and mix gently.

Assemble

  1. Fill a vol-au-vent crust with the mixture, ensuring the sauce is thick to prevent the crust from becoming soft.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Provide the delicate white fish filling that forms the main body of the dish.
Cream sauce or béchamel
Binds the fish pieces and gives the filling a moist, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and carries the seasoning.
Vol-au-vent crust
Serves as the crisp pastry case that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Keeping the sauce thick. If the sauce is thin or the filling is too wet, it will soak into the pastry and make the crust soft. Heating the sauce without boiling also keeps it from thinning or splitting, so it stays thick enough to hold the fish.

“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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