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Plain Boiled Sole

Boiled sole served with lemon, parsley, and plain melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Plain Boiled Sole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the sole as directed.

  2. Soak the sole in plenty of cold water with salt (1 ounce per quart).

Cook and serve

  1. Bring the water gently to a boil.

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

  3. Place the sole in a clean napkin.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices.

  5. Serve with plain melted butter or your preferred 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sole
Is the main protein; gentle simmering keeps its flesh tender and moist rather than tough.

The step that matters

Simmering the sole gently. Boiling vigorously agitates and breaks up delicate fish flesh and can toughen it. Keeping the water just below a rolling boil cooks the fish evenly and preserves its texture.

“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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