Skip to main content
Main

Soles, a LA Rar1sienne

A French-style sole fillet baked with a white wine butter sauce, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, served with crayfish and glazed croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Whiting and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 236 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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 the soles

  1. Trim the soles.

  2. Remove the bones.

  3. Line the soles with quenelle forcemeat mixed with chopped herbs.

  4. Place the soles in a buttered sauté pan.

  5. Season the soles with salt and pepper.

  6. Moisten the soles with white wine.

  7. Cover the soles with buttered paper.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake the soles in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Press the soles between two dishes.

  3. Cool the soles in the larder.

Coat and fry

  1. Prepare a stiff Allemande sauce.

  2. Cover the cooled soles with the sauce.

  3. Wait until the sauce has set.

  4. Coat the soles with egg and bread crumbs.

  5. Fry the soles until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with a Parisian ragout and a border of crayfish and glazed croutons.

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. Whiting + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + crayfishtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Egg + breadtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together22,584 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soles
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a delicate, flaky texture.
Quenelle forcemeat of whitings
Lines the fish with a light, tender layer that stays moist during baking.
Allemande sauce
Forms a stiff, set coating that holds the crumbs and fish together.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the sauce-coated fish so they brown evenly.
Bread crumbs
Creates a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried.
White wine
Moistens the fish, adding moisture and aromatic flavour as it bakes.

The step that matters

Wait until the sauce has set. If the Allemande sauce is not stiff and fully set, it will slide off or soften under the egg and crumbs, so the coating will not hold during frying.

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of White BreadIllustrationWhite Bread80 recipesIllustration of Bread OmeletteIllustrationBread Omelette60 recipesIllustration of Oatmeal BreadIllustrationOatmeal Bread51 recipes