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Sole Au Gratin

A baked sole fillet topped with parsley, mushroom, onion, breadcrumbs, butter, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sole Au Gratin

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash, clean, and skin the sole; trim the fins and tail, and score each side.

Assemble in the dish

  1. Mix the parsley, mushroom, and onion together.

  2. Sprinkle half of the mixture in a greased gratin dish.

  3. Season the fish and lay it in the dish white side up.

  4. Spread the remainder of the mixture on top of the fish.

  5. Scatter lightly with brown breadcrumbs.

  6. Drizzle with melted butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Cook the sole in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about thirty minutes.

  2. Pour the brown sauce around the fish and serve.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sole
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently to become tender and flaky.
Mushroom
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the layer over the fish.
Brown breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping under the oven heat.
Melted butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps the topping brown.
Brown sauce
Adds richness and moisture around the fish when served.

The step that matters

Baking the sole. Fish is delicate and overcooks quickly, becoming dry and tough. Baking at a moderate heat for the stated time cooks it gently while the topping browns.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, parsley, mushroom, butter, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, parsley, mushroom, butter, 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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