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Sole, Fricasseed

A fish fricassee made with sole, bread crumb balls, and a sauce of stock, lemon, and port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sole, Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean, skin, and fry the soles, then drain them on a sieve to remove excess fat.

  2. Remove the flesh from the small sole, tear it into flakes, and mix with bread crumbs, parsley, lemon rind, pepper, and salt. Work in the butter and egg until well combined, then form into small balls.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the balls in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the stock, brown thickening, lemon juice, and port or claret. Season with salt and cayenne. Bring to a boil until thick and smooth, then add the soles and balls. Simmer gently for 3-4 minutes until heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve the soles on a dish, arrange the balls around them, pour the sauce over, and garnish with lemon and parsley.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
Firm white flesh that flakes when cooked and holds its shape in the sauce.
Egg
Binds the fish and crumbs together so the balls hold their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the fish balls body and a light texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and flavour to the fish balls and helps them brown when fried.
Port or claret
Adds depth, acidity and sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening and simmering the sauce with the fish. Boiling the sauce until thick and then simmering the soles gently keeps the fish tender and intact. Vigorous boiling would toughen the flesh and break it apart.

“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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