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Baked Soles, Halibut and Carp

A baked fish dish using fresh butter, sea salt, cayenne pepper, anchovy essence, optional wine, bread crumbs, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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, Halibut and Carp

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

  1. Clarify the butter and pour it into a serving dish.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, essence of anchovies, and wine (if using).

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cleaned soles in the dish and cover them with bread crumbs.

  2. Moisten the bread crumbs with clarified butter.

  3. Optionally, mix minced parsley with the bread crumbs.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. 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.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 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. 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

Fresh butter
Clarified butter carries flavor and moistens the bread crumbs, helping them brown as the fish bakes.
Fine soles
The delicate fish is the main component, cooked gently in the buttered dish.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crust over the fish that protects it and browns in the oven.
Dry white wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the buttery sauce in the dish.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a concentrated savory, salty depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Baking time and temperature. Fine sole fillets are thin and cook quickly, so overbaking dries the flesh. Bread crumbs moistened with butter brown and crisp at moderate heat, while the fish turns opaque and flakes when done.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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

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