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Fillet of Sole Au Gratin

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,057 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

Make the sauce and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the Anchovy Sauce, sherry, sliced mushrooms, parsley, chives, Brown Sauce, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour the mixture over the fillets.

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

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the paper, sprinkle browned bread crumbs on each fillet, and add a small piece of butter on top.

  2. Return to the oven for 5 minutes before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,176 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole fillets
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks gently under the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the sauce as they cook.
Brown sauce
Adds richness and body to the sauce that coats the fish.
Anchovy sauce
Contributes savoury, salty depth to the sauce.
Browned bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping during the final baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Covering the tin with buttered paper for the first bake. The paper traps steam so the fish cooks gently in its sauce without drying out. Removing it before the final bake lets the crumbs brown.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, sauce, sherry, mushroom, chive, bread, 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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