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Fillet of Sole a LA Normande

Fillet of sole baked with sherry, consommé, sea salt, and Normande sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fillet of Sole a LA Normande

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. Place the fillets in a well buttered baking tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Add sherry, consommé, and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt.

  2. Cover the tin with oiled paper and bake for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the tin, take off the paper, and pour Sauce à la Normande over the fillets.

  4. Return to the oven for 5 minutes and serve 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sherry + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 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

Sole fillets
Provide the delicate fish that is gently cooked in the liquids and sauce.
Sherry
Adds aromatic flavour and moisture to the fish as it steams in the tin.
Consommé
Supplies savoury liquid that gently poaches the fillets and keeps them moist.
Sauce à la normande
Adds a rich, creamy coating that finishes the fish with flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Covering the tin with oiled paper. The paper traps steam so the fillets cook gently in the liquid and stay moist. Leaving it uncovered for the full bake would let the fish dry out at the surface.

“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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