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Stuffed Sole

A sole fillet stuffed with a forcemeat of parsley, lemon rind, stock, egg, breadcrumbs, suet, lobster or shrimps, baked in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Sole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the sole on both sides and cut down the center as if filleting.

  2. Raise the fillets about ½ inch on each side of the bone, but do not remove them.

Make and bake

  1. Mix all ingredients with the egg to make the forcemeat.

  2. Lay the forcemeat under each fillet, place in a buttered tin, and pour the stock or gravy around.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes, basting occasionally.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, strain the gravy around the base, and dust with a few brown bread crumbs.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Sole
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently to a flaky, tender texture.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together around the fish while baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and a light texture.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the forcemeat moist as it bakes.
Brown stock or gravy
Provides moisture and flavor as the fish cooks in the tin.

The step that matters

Bake for 20 minutes, basting occasionally. Fine sole is delicate and dries out quickly in the oven. Basting with the surrounding stock keeps the surface moist, while the fish turns opaque and flakes when cooked through.

“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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