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Fried Soles

Fried soles are fish fillets coated in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried in lard and served with parsley and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Soles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Trim the soles by removing their fins and wipe them dry.

  2. Run a knife along the back of the spinal bone.

  3. Dust the fish with flour, then brush both sides with beaten eggs.

  4. Cover completely with fine bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the soles in hot lard until cooked through and golden amber.

  2. Drain on a cloth to absorb excess grease.

  3. Serve on a cloth with fried parsley and your choice of sauce.

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. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + lobstertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together736 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
The fish is the main component, cooked through by frying in hot fat.
Beaten eggs
They bind the flour and bread crumbs to the fish so the coating adheres.
Fine bread crumbs
They form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Flour for dusting
A dry layer that helps the egg wash stick to the fish surface.
Lard
Hot fat for frying that transfers heat and browns the crumb coating.

The step that matters

Fry the soles in hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy before the fish cooks through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, bread, lobster):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, bread, lobster. 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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