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Sole Au Gratin

Sole au gratin is a baked sole fillet topped with a mushroom, shallot, and parsley mixture, breadcrumbs, and wine stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sole Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the mushrooms, shallots, and parsley.

Assemble

  1. Butter a dish or tin and sprinkle half of the mushroom mixture, some bread crumbs, and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Place the soles on top, add the remaining mushroom mixture, and season again.

  3. Cover with more bread crumbs and pour in the white wine and enough stock to just cover the fish.

Bake

  1. Bake until hardly any gravy remains.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
The main fish, which cooks gently in the wine and stock to stay moist.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory flavor that blends into the sauce as it bakes.
Baked bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, flavoring the liquid that forms the gravy.
Shallots
Contribute a mild, sweet onion flavor that softens during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until hardly any gravy remains. Baking long enough lets the liquid reduce into a concentrated gravy, but stopping too late can dry the fish and dull the topping.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, shallot, butter, bread, pepper, white wine):

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

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