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To Boil Soles, Brill, or Any Other Flat Fish

A simple boiled flat fish served with anchovy and shrimp sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil Soles, Brill, or Any Other Flat Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish and cut off their fins.

Cook

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add coarse sea salt.

  2. Add the fish to the boiling water and cook until they rise to the surface.

Serve

  1. Serve with anchovy sauce and shrimp sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + shrimptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Fish + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Sauce + shrimptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,423 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

Flat fish
The main ingredient, poached gently in salted boiling water until it rises to the surface.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the plain fish as a serving sauce.
Shrimp sauce
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the plain fish as a serving sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the fish until it rises to the surface. Fish flesh is delicate and its proteins tighten and toughen when overcooked, so the fish can turn dry and rubbery. Removing it as soon as it floats helps keep it moist and tender.

“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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