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Sole Normande

A French fish dish of sole simmered with wine, stock, and shellfish, garnished with mushrooms and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sole Normande

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fish

  1. Melt butter in a fish kettle and add the prepared soles.

  2. Sprinkle the mixture with parsley, thyme, onion, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Pour in white wine and stock, then add oysters, mussels, and fried gudgeons.

  4. Cover and stew slowly until the soles are cooked through.

Serve

  1. Transfer the soles to a serving dish, garnish with oysters, gudgeons, mushrooms, and truffles.

  2. Serve with sippets of bread fried in butter and drizzled with lemon juice.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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 flesh that is the main component of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries aroma while gently cooking the fish and sippets.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid, flavouring the fish as it stews.
Oysters
Contribute briny flavour and tender texture to the stewing liquid and garnish.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the finished dish.
Truffles
Add a concentrated earthy aroma as a garnish.

The step that matters

Stew slowly until the soles are cooked through. Fish proteins turn firm and dry quickly at high heat, so gentle, covered stewing keeps the flesh moist and tender while it cooks through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, white wine, oyster):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, white wine, oyster. 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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