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Fish A-LA-russe

Fish à la Russé is a baked fish dish with a lemon, pepper, and breadcrumb stuffing and a sauce made from fish bone broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and fish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,661 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (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 the fish

  1. Make an incision down the back of the whiting.

  2. Remove the bone carefully.

  3. Remove the skin from the whiting.

  4. Place the bones and skin in a saucepan with cold water.

  5. Simmer the bones and skin for 30 minutes.

  6. Pound the fish pieces with the lemon rind, half the pepper, salt, and bread crumbs in a mortar.

  7. Stuff the sole with the fish mixture.

  8. Cover the incision with sliced mushrooms.

Bake the fish

  1. Grease a baking dish.

  2. Place the sole inside the baking dish.

  3. Cover the sole with greased paper.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes.

Make the balls and sauce

  1. Roll the remaining stuffing into small balls.

  2. Boil the balls in water for 5 minutes.

  3. Melt the butter in a separate saucepan. Add flour to the melted butter.

  4. Stir in the fish bone water gradually.

  5. Bring the sauce to a boil. Cook the sauce for 2 minutes.

Serve

  1. Place the cooked sole on a hot dish.

  2. Arrange the balls around the sole.

  3. Pour the sauce over the dish.

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. Bread + fishtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,661 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + fishtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together444 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the delicate flaky fish that is baked and stuffed.
Bread crumbs
Bind the pounded fish mixture so the stuffing holds together rather than falling apart.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and fish-bone water into a smooth sauce.
Eggs
Optional addition to the sauce, where they help it thicken and enrich it.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory flavour as they cook over the fish.

The step that matters

Stir in the fish bone water gradually. Adding liquid slowly to the butter and flour roux lets the starch disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and produces a smooth sauce.

“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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