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Sole Au Gratin

A whole sole baked in a dish with a fried mushroom, onion and herb mixture, topped with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

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 the filling

  1. Chop the mushrooms, onion, parsley, and lemon peel.

  2. Season the chopped mixture with pepper and salt.

  3. Fry the mixture in butter for 4-5 minutes.

Assemble

  1. Coat the sole in egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Place the sole in a baking dish.

  3. Pour the mushroom mixture over the sole.

  4. Turn the fish over.

  5. Sprinkle the fish with bread crumbs.

  6. Add sherry and gravy.

  7. Top with grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Bake for 10 minutes.

  3. Bake until the top is light brown.

  4. Serve the sole in the baking dish.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

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

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

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

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 flaky tenderness under the topping.
Butter
Fries the mushroom mixture, carrying flavour and adding richness to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury, earthy flavour to the filling as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating and topping that helps the surface brown in the oven.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce around the fish.

The step that matters

Bake until the top is light brown. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry or rubbery if overbaked, so watch the surface colour and stop once the fish flakes easily while the topping browns.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, parsley, lemon, pepper, bread, sherry):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, parsley, lemon, pepper, bread, sherry. 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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