Name: Baked Soles
Ingredients: 2 to 3 ounces of fresh butter; coarse sea salt to taste; cayenne pepper to taste; 1 teaspoon essence of anchovies; 1/3 cup dry white wine (or sherry); 2 soles, cleaned and dried; fine bread crumbs; minced parsley (optional); lemon juice (to taste)

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 ↓

Baked Soles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Clarify the butter and pour it into a baking dish.
Add salt, cayenne, essence of anchovies, and dry white wine.

Assemble and bake

Lay the cleaned soles in the dish and cover them with a thick layer of bread crumbs.
Moisten the bread crumbs with clarified butter.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

Serve

Mix lemon juice into the sauce before serving.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole: Is the fish that gets baked, becoming flaky and opaque in the moderate oven.
Fresh butter: Clarified and poured over the crumbs, it adds richness and helps the crumbs brown.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned crust over the fish while helping keep it moist.
Dry white wine: Adds acidity and liquid to the baking dish, forming the base of the sauce.
Essence of anchovies: Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, white wine, bread, lemon):

Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Marjoramfits about as well
Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, white wine, bread, lemon. 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.