Name: To Boil Soles
Ingredients: 3 quarts spring water; 1 handful coarse sea salt; soles; anchovy sauce; shrimp sauce

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

Bring the spring water and salt to a boil.
Add the soles and boil gently for 10 minutes.
Serve the soles on a clean napkin with anchovy or shrimp sauce in small boats.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Anchovy + shrimptop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together440 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Sauce + shrimptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,423 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Soles: The main fish, cooked gently in salted water until it turns tender and flaky.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the cooking water so the fish is lightly flavoured as it poaches.

“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.