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Sole, Mayonnaise

A filleted sole served with a mayonnaise sauce, anchovy essence, and garnished with chillies and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 579 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sole, Mayonnaise

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Fillet the soles and roll them up, securing with thread.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and lemon juice.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 8 minutes, basting with butter once or twice.

  2. Let the fillets cool, then add a few drops of essence of anchovies on each.

  3. Cover with thick mayonnaise sauce and garnish with chillies and watercress.

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 + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Form the main protein that cooks gently and turns flaky when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture while basting, helping the fish stay tender and browning the surface.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the fish and the sauce.
Thick mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and a creamy coating that contrasts with the cooked fish.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 8 minutes, basting with butter once or twice. Fish proteins set quickly and dry out past the point of tenderness, so a short bake with butter basting keeps the fillets moist. Overbaking toughens the flesh and makes it crumble.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, sauce, watercress):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Mangofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sauce, watercress. 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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