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Soles, a LA Parisienne

Soles, à la Parisienne, is a baked and fried fish dish served with Allemande sauce, crayfish, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 and remove the bone.

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

  3. Place them in a buttered sauté pan, season with salt and pepper, and moisten with white wine.

  4. Cover with buttered paper and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Set and coat

  1. Once done, press between two dishes and cool in the larder.

  2. Prepare a stiff Allemande sauce and cover the cooled soles with it.

  3. Once the sauce has set, coat the soles with egg and bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry until golden brown, then serve garnished with a Parisian ragout and a border of crayfish and 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 delicate fish base that is shaped, baked and coated in this dish.
Quenelle forcemeat of whitings
Forms a light, tender layer that lines and cushions the soles.
Allemande sauce
Stiff sauce that sets over the cooled soles, holding the coating in place.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs so they adhere and brown when fried.
Bread crumbs
Forms a golden, crisp outer coating when fried.
White wine
Moistens the soles in the pan, adding moisture and gentle flavor during baking.

The step that matters

Pressing and cooling before coating. The soles must be fully cooled and the Allemande sauce set before egg and crumbs are applied. If warm or unset, the coating slides off or the sauce runs, and the crumbs can soak up moisture and fry unevenly.

“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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