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Soles Aux Fines Herbes

A sole fillet cooked with butter, shallots, sherry, and herbs, finished in a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soles Aux Fines Herbes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sauce

  1. In a sauté pan, melt the butter and mix in the shallots.

  2. Add the sherry and the sole to the pan.

Bake

  1. Pour in the water, gravy, or butter sauce, and sprinkle with parsley.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the sole to a hot dish and boil the cooking liquid for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Add a small amount of anchovy sauce and Harvey's sauce, then pour over the sole and serve immediately.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sole
The main fish, which cooks gently in the sherry and liquid to stay moist and tender.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma, and its flavour concentrates as the cooking liquid reduces.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the shallots and the finished sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion flavour that blends into the pan sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the cooking liquid. Boiling for only 2-3 minutes reduces the liquid enough to concentrate flavour without overcooking the fish or letting the sauce become too thick or salty. Watching the time keeps the sauce balanced.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

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