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Fillet of Sole Au Gratin

A baked sole fillet topped with mushroom ketchup, anchovy sauce, sherry, mushrooms, herbs, consommé, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,099 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fillet of Sole Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking tin and place the sole fillets inside.

  3. In a bowl, mix mushroom ketchup, Anchovy Sauce, sherry, sliced mushrooms, parsley, chives, consommé, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Pour the mixture over the fillets.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the tin with buttered paper and bake for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the paper, sprinkle browned breadcrumbs on each fillet, and add a small piece of butter on top.

  3. Return to the oven for 5 minutes before serving in the baking 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole fillets
Provide the delicate white fish that is cooked gently in the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that softens as the dish bakes.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the savoury sauce.
Consommé
Supplies liquid and savoury body that keeps the fish moist while baking.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Covering the tin while baking. The buttered paper traps steam so the fish cooks gently in the liquid without drying out; removing it before the final bake lets the breadcrumbs brown.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, sauce, sherry, chive, butter):

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, ketchup, anchovy, sauce, sherry, chive, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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