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Soles a LA Cardinal

A dish of filleted soles cooked with butter, lemon, stock, anchovy sauce, sherry, and a pink hue from cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Soles a LA Cardinal

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 the fish

  1. Wipe the fillets with a clean cloth.

  2. Sprinkle pepper and salt over the fillets.

  3. Roll the fillets into cork shapes.

Bake

  1. Place the fillets in a baking dish with a little butter and lemon juice.

  2. Cover with buttered paper and bake for 15 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

Make the sauce

  1. Combine stock, anchovy sauce, seasoning, and roux in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Strain the sauce.

  4. Add sherry and cochineal to color it pink.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter 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
Provide the delicate white fish that is rolled and baked as the main dish.
Roux
Thickens the sauce so it coats the fish rather than running off.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish during baking.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a wine aroma to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce before straining. The roux must be fully boiled so its starch swells and thickens the sauce evenly; undercooked roux leaves the sauce thin and faintly pasty.

“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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