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Baked Soles

Baked soles are fillets coated in butter, egg, and seasoned breadcrumbs, then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Baked Soles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin and cleanse the soles, then wipe them dry.

  2. Wrap the fish in a clean cloth and let it rest for at least 1 hour.

Coat the fish

  1. Mix the liquefied butter with the beaten egg.

  2. Brush the fish with the butter and egg mixture.

  3. Cover the fish with seasoned bread-crumbs.

  4. Grease a flat dish with liquid butter and place the fish inside.

  5. Sprinkle a little more butter on top and press the bread-crumbs lightly.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
The main protein, which cooks through in the oven and forms the body of the dish.
Egg
Binds the butter to the fish and helps the bread-crumbs adhere to the surface.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the fish from drying out while it bakes.
Bread-crumbs
Forms a crisp coating that browns in the oven and protects the fish surface.

The step that matters

Let the fish rest wrapped in a cloth. Resting the wrapped fish for at least an hour lets it firm up and release surface moisture, so the coating sticks and the fish does not steam or fall apart during baking.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, bread, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

“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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