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Fillet of Sole a LA Normande

A baked sole fillet served with a sauce made from sherry, consommé, and a 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 and bake

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

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

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

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

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the tin from the oven, take off the paper, and pour Sauce a la Normande over the fillets.

  2. 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
Forms the delicate, flaky fish that cooks quickly and gently in the liquid.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid, lifting the flavour of the fish.
Consommé
Provides savoury liquid that moistens the fish and carries flavour during baking.

The step that matters

Covering and timing the bake. Fish proteins set and dry out quickly when overheated, so the oiled paper keeps steam around the fillets. Keeping the first bake to the stated time helps the fillets stay moist and tender before the sauce goes on.

“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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