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Soles, a LA Parisienne

Soles fillets baked with a buttered sauce, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried and served with a Parisian ragout, crayfish, and glazed croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 236 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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 the fish

  1. Trim the soles and remove the bone.

  2. Line the soles with quenelle forcemeat mixed with chopped herbs.

  3. Place them in a buttered sauté pan, season with pepper and salt, and moisten with white wine.

  4. Cover with buttered paper and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Coat and fry

  1. Once done, press between two earthen dishes to cool.

  2. Prepare a stiff Allemande sauce and cover the soles with it.

  3. Once the sauce has set, coat with egg and bread crumbs.

  4. Fry until golden brown, then dish up.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with a Parisian ragout, crayfish, and glazed croutons.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Whiting + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + crayfishtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Egg + breadtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together22,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 forms the main body of the dish.
Quenelle forcemeat of whitings
Forms a light, tender layer that cushions and moistens the fish during baking.
Allemande sauce
Creates a stiff, set coating that holds the egg and crumbs in place.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the sauce-covered fish so they stick during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the paper and pan brown the fish gently during baking.

The step that matters

Press the soles to cool before saucing. Pressing between earthen dishes flattens and cools the fish so the stiff Allemande sauce can set evenly. If the fish is still warm or unevenly shaped, the coating may slide off or fail to hold the egg and crumbs during frying.

“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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