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To Boil Soles

A single sole fish boiled in salted water and served with optional sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Empty the sole, remove the gills and cut off the fins.

  2. Wash the sole thoroughly without skinning.

  3. Soak the sole in cold water with dissolved salt.

Cook

  1. Heat the sole slowly.

  2. Simmer the sole for 5 to 10 minutes, depending on its size.

  3. Drain the sole well.

Serve

  1. Place the sole on a serving plate with the white side up.

  2. Serve immediately with your choice of sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + lobstertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Shrimp + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sole
The main ingredient, whose delicate white flesh becomes moist and flaky when gently cooked in simmering water.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Fish proteins set and toughen when overheated, so a gentle simmer keeps the sole moist and tender. Size determines how long it needs, so judge the timing by the fish.

“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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