Name: Sole Au Gratin
Ingredients: Butter; 4 button mushrooms, minced; ¼ of an eschalot, minced; A little parsley, minced; Coarse sea salt; Pepper; Bread crumbs; Good stock; Optional: ⅓ cup white wine (like Chablis)

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sole Au Gratin

Ingredients

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.

Clean the sole as directed.
Butter an oval gratin tin.
Place half of the minced mushroom, eschalot, and parsley mixture at the bottom of the tin and sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs.
Lay the sole on top of the bread crumbs and cover it with the remaining herb mixture. Season with pepper and salt.
Dot the top with a few pieces of butter and sprinkle generously with bread crumbs.
Pour stock around the fish, but not over it. If desired, add white wine.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes and serve in the gratin tin.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,765 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, pepper, bread, white wine):

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, pepper, bread, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.