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Filleted Soles

Filleted soles coated in a parsley and egg yolk butter mixture, baked and served with oyster sauce and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Filleted Soles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a small saucepan, combine egg yolks, butter, and chopped parsley.

  2. Stir over low heat until thickened.

Stuff and bake

  1. Place some of the mixture on one side of each fillet.

  2. Fold the fillet over the end.

  3. Place the folded fillet in a baking dish.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the fish is cooked.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare oyster sauce using stock instead of water.

  2. Add chopped parsley to the oyster sauce.

  3. Arrange the fillets in a crown on a serving dish.

  4. Pour the sauce in the center 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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and sauce 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

Egg yolks
Thicken when gently heated, binding the butter and parsley into a stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the stuffing soft and moist.
Soles
The delicate white fish that is filleted, stuffed, and baked.
Oyster sauce
Adds savory, salty depth to the serving sauce.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until thickened. Egg yolks set from heat, and high heat can scramble them into lumps. Gentle, steady heat gives a smooth, thick stuffing.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, oyster, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, oyster, sauce. 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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