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Sole a LA Rouenaise

Baked sole fillets filled with lobster cutlets mixture, finished with lemon juice and butter, garnished with chopped truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and truffle match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,209 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, 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

  1. Skin and fillet the soles.

  2. Place the Lobster Cutlets mixture on half of each fillet.

  3. Fold the fillets in half and place them on a buttered baking sheet.

Bake and serve

  1. Squeeze a little lemon juice on each fillet and cover with buttered paper.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  3. Serve with the same sauce as for Fillets a la Bohemienne and garnish with chopped truffles.

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. Butter + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,197 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Truffle + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + lobstertop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,609 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + truffletop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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 fillets that wrap around the filling.
Lobster cutlets mixture
Supplies the rich, savoury filling that flavours each folded fillet.
Butter
Greases the sheet and paper so the fish does not stick, and adds richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, truffle, lobster):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Grapeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Appleabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Vanillaabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, truffle, lobster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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